Societe Generale Prime Services has become a clearing member at ICE Clear Credit and ICE Clear Europe in order to provide clearing services for the credit default swap (CDS) markets.
The clearing broker, formerly Newedge, will offer its clients CDS clearing services, covering North American and European CDS indices as well as European and sovereign single name CDS.
The membership completes Soc Gen’s coverage of OTC derivatives asset classes, which also includes interest rate swaps and FX on its global and cross-asset OTC clearing platform.
“Today, our clients live in a capital-constrained environment which means we are continually looking for ways in which we can help support them in making efficiencies through sophisticated solutions,” said David Escoffier, deputy head of global markets for Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking and CEO at Newedge.
“ICE’s same day CDS clearing solution and portfolio margining risk model offers our clients capital efficiencies while maintaining strong risk management protection, providing real added-value to our clients while completing our global clearing offering in both the listed and OTC clearing space. Furthermore, it means we can offer our clients comprehensive solutions in credit derivatives, from research to trading and execution to client clearing.”
Soc Gen has been busy building out its clearing arm over the past couple of years with the acquisition of Newedge and more recently Bache from Jefferies.
While other clearing brokers appear to be scaling back in the space, Soc Gen is aiming to grow in the squeezed clearing business.