Global clearing house LCH’s SwapClear service is looking to extend its traditional operating hours to 24 hours a day, five days a week, to better support market participants in the Asia Pacific (APAC region).
The move will complete in March 2022 and be implemented in two phases.
On 27 September, the first stage of the implementation took place as SwapClear moved its Monday morning opening four hours earlier, opening at 09:00 Sydney time and 00:00 London time.
Before this, SwapClear was open 20 hours a day, five days a week and was not open during Asia Pacific mornings.
LCH will look to extend the remaining Tuesday-through-Friday early morning operating hours by March 2022.
The new operating hours will start at 05:00 Sydney time on Monday/20:00 London time on Sunday evening and close at 09:00 Sydney time on Saturday/00:00 London time on Friday night.
Market participants within the APAC region will benefit from this new development as it will deliver clearing certainty during the morning for SwapClear’s regional members and clients, including the Australia market.
“This extension in operating hours reinforces our position as a leading global clearing house and directly responds to a critical request from our APAC members and clients to support their needs. It has also been strongly supported by regulators across the region,” said Susi DeVerdelon, head of SwapClear, LCH.
Alongside catering to Asia Pacific market participants through extending operating hours, LCH has also been expanding its presence within the region recently.
Last month, LCH expanded the presence of its FX clearing service ForexClear in Asia with the onboarding of its first Taiwan-based client, CTBC Bank.
“This initiative underscores our strong commitment to the region and risk management. In the extended hours earlier this week, close to a thousand trades were registered and processed near real-time and allowed our users to risk manage those trades in a timely fashion,” said Rohit Verma, head of APAC, LCH.