European Commodity Clearing (ECC) has introduced a new membership model – the Direct Clearing Participant Model (DCPM).
The new model will allow trading participants to have direct access to trading and clearing of spot markets without the requirement of a clearing member which enables a greater number of players, in particular the smaller participants, access to wholesale spot markets and further increasing depth of liquidity.
Initially, the model will be available to the Dutch and Belgian EPEX power spot markets with France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria scheduled to follow by the end of 2016.
It will be extended to the natural gas spot markets operated by Powernext in 2017.
In order to ensure a standardised process, all payment transactions will be processed via an ECC approved settlement bank, which unlike the traditional clearing member model, does not guarantee for trading participants. The first settlement bank which was approved by ECC is ABN AMRO Bank.
Dr Thomas Siegl, ECC’s chief risk officer, says: “The new direct clearing model is an innovative solution to broaden access to the market based on client feedback, particularly from smaller clients and will allow more of our customers to access liquidity in the spot markets.”
Derek Abernethy, commercial director of EPEX SPOT, says “The new Direct Clearing Participant Model will provide opportunities for more market participants to access our day-ahead and intraday markets. This new service is especially beneficial for smaller members who, together, are significant contributors to market liquidity.”
European Commodity Clearing is the central clearing house for energy and related products in Europe. In its capacity as the central counterparty ECC assumes clearing as well as physical and financial settlement of transactions concluded on CEGH Gas Exchange of the Vienna Stock Exchange, EEX, EPEX SPOT, HUPX, Gaspoint Nordic, NOREXECO, Powernext, Power Exchange Central Europe (PXE) and SEEPEX, or registered for clearing on these exchanges.
