Membership

Cboe Clear Europe is a modern and vibrant multi-asset pan-European clearing house. Whether you want to clear Equities, ETFs, Derivatives - or all three - we have the right membership options to allow you to take advantage of the efficiencies and cost savings offered by utilising a single CCP.

Cboe Clear Europe is Europe's most-connected equities clearing house and has established single, interoperable and preferred clearing connections covering approximately 95 percent of European equity trading flow for our clients.

In the European ETF industry - in partnership with ETF issuers, RFQ venues and other participants in the ecosystem - Cboe Clear Europe offers primary and secondary market post-trade services to help reduce fragmentation and improve efficiencies for clients.

Cboe Clear Europe has recently extended its services to equity derivatives in order to support Cboe Europe Derivatives, a new pan-European equity derivatives exchange, clearing futures and options based on six Cboe Europe equity indices. Cboe Clear Europe brings efficiencies and cost savings to market participants and end investors, by allowing a broad range of pan-European index futures and options to be cleared at a single CCP.

If you wish to clear with Cboe Clear Europe you have two options. You can either become a direct participant of Cboe Clear Europe or utilise the services of a General Clearing Participant ("GCP").

How do I become a clearing participant?

Whether for Equities or Derivatives, if you wish to become a direct participant of Cboe Clear Europe there are two membership options that you can choose. You can either:

1. Become a General Clearing Participant (GCP)
2. Become a Direct Clearing Participant (DCP)

GCPs clear trades for themselves and/or for firms that are not Cboe Clear Europe participants (Trading Participants or TPs). DCPs clear only for themselves.

Trading Participants do not have direct access to Cboe Clear Europe and their activity is cleared and managed via a General Clearing Participant. A wide range of brokers, international banks and investment firms already utilise Cboe Clear Europe. For details of clearing participants providing access to Cboe Clear Europe please see our participants page.

Please contact Cboe Clear Europes Relationship Management team who can guide you through the application process and provide the necessary forms and gather supporting information. At this stage we may request supporting information to confirm that your application will meet the minimum requirements for membership.

To inquire further, please contact Cboe Clear Europe Relationship Management at [email protected]

Clearing Fund Contribution and Costs

Cboe Clear Europe has an Annual membership fee of 30,000 EUR for Cboe Clear Europe’s services on Equities. For Equities this one membership fee provides access to 19 Markets across 39 trade venues. There is a separate Derivatives Membership fee that provides access to all Derivatives services at Cboe Clear Europe. Currently membership fees for our Derivatives segment are waived. For all clearing participants there is a mandatory contribution to Cboe Clear Europes Clearing Fund. There are separate Default Fund Contributions for each product family (i.e. Equity and Derivatives segments need separate contributions). This is as follows for both segments:

• for a Direct Clearing Participant : € 1,000,000
• for a General Clearing Participant : € 3,000,000

These are the applicable base deposits as laid out within the Clearing Rule Book.

• picture_as_pdfCboe Clear Europe Clearing Rule Book
• picture_as_pdfRegulation Fees and Penalties
• picture_as_pdfRegulation Clearing Fund

The Membership Process

The membership process can be broken down into four stages

1

Application
The initial application confirms membership eligibility and the scope of the membership. The application will then be submitted for approval by Cboe Clear Europes Management Board.

2

Setup and On-boarding
Following the successful application Cboe Clear Europe will create a tailored package for onboarding and assist in setting up the members account(s). A Clearing Participant will be requested to provide information on its exchange connections, post trade requirements, including settlement agents & PoA, netting options and collateral preferences. At this stage we will also establish connectivity and provide the necessary training in regards to Cboe Clear Europes features and functions.

3

Testing
Once the setup is agreed the joining member can proceed to testing. Access to Cboe Clear Europes testing system is free and full end to end testing with trading platforms through to settlement agent and CSDs can be provided.

4

Go-Live
Once testing has been completed and the joining member has demonstrated a minimum level of competency go live can be confirmed with trade venues. The activation of a new membership can take a minimum of six weeks. The timeframe may vary dependent on the scope, size and scale of the membership.

For information on Cboe Clear Europe's admission, suspension, and exit criteria, please consult the Clearing Rule Book.

Reporting

Cboe Clear Europe offers Clearing Participants a variety of reports with a choice of delivery via machine readable output, SWIFT or email. Delivery of the data is free but there are charges for the communication lines supplied by third-parties;

Real-time reporting offer Cboe Clear Europe Clearing Participants reporting of executed trades as soon as the data has been received from the trading platform and validated in the system of Cboe Clear Europe. This service can be offered via a connection through BT Radianz or a VPN-line.

Intra-day reporting provide Cboe Clear Europe data files via (S)FTP. The data is delivered in ASCII format. The intra-day files are sent three times per day: 11:00, 14:00 and 17:00 CET, but we can offer different timing and frequency as requested by clients.

End-of-day reporting includes end-of-day margin reports, trade reports, settlement reports, netting reports and fees reports. The end-of-day reports are sent at around 19.00 CET.

Reports on trades are in the CIF file, whereas reports on risk management are in the CHC file. Both files contain data in an ASCII format and are sent via (S)FTP. Cboe Clear Europe can also send the end-of-day reports via secured email. When sent via email, data can be offered in either a .doc(x) or .pdf format.

An overview of the report contents, transmission types and distribution times can found in the Service Overview.

Ongoing KYC/AML Requirements

All Clearing Participants are required to complete an annual Due Diligence questionnaire and provide certain KYC/AML documentation at least annually or upon request to ensure ongoing adherence to membership requirements. Clearing Participants are responsible to informing Cboe Clear Europe of any changes to its organisation. Members will be required to CONTENT MISSING

Membership Governance Boards and Committees

Cboe Clear Europe operates two forums for advisory matters;

The Strategic Advisory Board is composed of nominated Clearing Participants who provide input to and validation of Cboe Clear Europe product and business strategy, as well as advice on market and regulatory developments.

To ensure continuity of representation of the wider Clearing Participant community, Cboe Clear Europe also has a Member Advisory Council which is responsible for providing advice on operational matters and corroborating output from the Strategic Advisory Board to members.