CCPs and network stability in OTC derivatives markets

The obligatory clearing of certain contracts through CCPs, that is imposed by Regulation (EU) no. 648/2012 of 4 July 2012 on OTC derivatives, central counterparties and trade repositories (called “EMIR”, i.e. European Market Infrastructure Regulation), is justified by the need to increase the transparency of the derivatives market, to mitigate systemic risk and to promote stability of the financial system. Central counterparties (CCPs) are clearing houses that interpose themselves between the counterparties to the contracts traded on one or more financial markets, becoming the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer. In this way CCPs are responsible for the clearing of transactions concluded on derivatives market, which reduces the credit risk of individual counterparties. The EU legislator creates a legal framework for the functioning of CCPs that become new systemically important institutions. In addition, EMIR leads to the creation of a kind of monopoly as CCPs’ services become compulsory for entities involved in trading on financial instruments that will be subject to central clearing. For these reasons, EMIR represents new and difficult challenges for effective oversight and supervision of financial markets. The tendency to maintain a market structure where operate only a relatively limited number of CCPs is likely to be perpetuated due to the predominance of entities with established market position, as well as the presence of high sunk costs associated with the rigorous regulatory requirements that determine the possibility of entering the market. The regulation of financial market infrastructure has to take into consideration and to integrate two perspectives: micro (transaction costs) and macro (systemic risk).

This study examined the ‘too central to fail’ concept in the South African equity sector. We employed the Granger causality framework and PageRank algorithm to generate the centrality scores of the sectors on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange under extreme market conditions. Using the realized volatilities of sectoral returns for the full sample period (3 January 2006–31 December 2021), as well as during the global financial crisis (GFC), European debt crisis (EDC), COVID-19 pandemic, and US–China trade war sub-periods, we analyzed the sectors’ interconnections and calculated each sector’s centrality score across the entire sample and under different extreme market conditions. This allowed us to rank sectors relative to their centrality scores. The results indicate that, in the full sample, the insurance sector has the highest PageRank centrality score, suggesting it is too central to fail. This implies that the insurance sector acts as a systemic receiver of risks and provides stability within the network of sectors. However, the sub-period analyses reveal that General Industrial and Automobiles emerged as the key sectors with the highest PageRank centrality scores, and shocks from other sectors can disproportionately affect these industries during crisis periods. Underperformance in these sectors could have destabilizing effects on the South African economy. The findings have significant implications for regulators and policymakers, portfolio and fund managers, local and international investors, and researchers in the field of finance.

Clearing networks

Auf dem G20-Gipfel wurde 2009 beschlossen, dass insbesondere OTC-Derivate-Transaktionen künftig überwiegend über Zentrale Gegenparteien (Central Counterparties) abgewickelt werden sollten. Weltweit beträgt das pro Jahr abgewickelte Volumen von Zins-, Währungs- und Aktienderivaten mehr als 400 Billionen US-$. Nach dem Brexit stellt sich die Frage, ob das derzeit überwiegend in London abgewickelte Clearing von Euro-OTC-Derivaten auf eine Zentrale Gegenpartei in der EU verlagert werden sollte. Gegner einer solchen Relokation befürchten hohe Kosten für die Marktteilnehmer. Die bislang vorliegenden Kostenschätzungen sind jedoch viel zu hoch.

The over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market has captured the attention of regulators after the Global Financial Crisis due to the risk it poses to financial stability. Under the post-crisis regulatory reform the concentration of business, and risks, among a few major players is changed by the concentration of a large portion of transactions in the new market infrastructures, the Central Counterparties (CCPs). This book, for the first time, analyses the regulatory response of the United Kingdom and the United States, the two largest centres of OTC derivatives transactions, and highlights their shortcomings. The book uses a normative risk-based approach to regulation as a methodological lens to analyse the UK regime of CCPs in the OTC derivatives market. It specifically focuses on prudential supervision and conduct of business rules governing OTC derivatives transactions and the move towards enhancing the use of central clearing. The resulting analysis, from a normative risk based approach, suggests that the UK regime for CCPs does not fulfil what would be expected if a coherent risk based approach was taken. Our comments on the Dodd-Frank Act highlight that the incoherent adoption of risk-based approach to regulation affects the effectiveness of the US regime for CCPs. Such a regime does not follow the pace of events of 'innovation risk'; in particular, the foreseeable changes FinTech will bring to the OTCDM and central clearing services. The second inadequacy of the US regime concerns the dual regulatory structure of the CFTC and the SEC, and the inadequate adoption of different and not well-coordinated regulatory strategies. We also analyse the cross-border implications of the US regime for non-US CCPs that provide clearing services to US market participants. Finally, we study the negative effects of the absence of a clearly defined resolution regime for CCPs.

Following the 2009 G-20 clearing mandate, international standard setting bodies (SSBs) have outlined a set of principles for central counterparty (CCP) risk management. They have also devised formulaic CCP risk capital requirements on clearing members for their central counterparty exposures. There is still no consensus among CCP regulators and bank regulators on how central counterparty risk should be measured coherently in practice. A conceptually sound and logically consistent definition of the CCP risk capital in the absence of a unifying CCP risk measurement framework is challenging. Incoherent CCP risk capital requirements may create an obscure environment disincentivizing the central clearing of over the counter (OTC) derivatives transactions. Based on novel applications of well-known mathematical models in finance, this paper introduces a risk measurement framework that coherently specifies all layers of the default waterfall resources of typical derivatives CCPs. The proposed framework gives the first risk sensitive definition of the CCP risk capital based on which less risk sensitive non-model-based methods can be evaluated.

This paper examines the changes to systemic risk made by the introduction of over the counter derivatives central clearing. It discusses both the reductions in exposure brought about by the introduction of central counterparties (CCPs) as buffers between derivatives counterparties, and the risks posed by the potential for a CCP failure. In particular, this paper studies both the solvency risks whereby a CCP might sustain sufficient losses to be unable to continue operations, and liquidity risks whereby the failure of a CCP or one of its members may be caused by an inability to meet claims. Based on this analysis, possible mitigants are suggested to the principal systemic risks posed by central clearing.

Using the volatility spillover index method based on the quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) model, this paper systematically examines structural changes and corresponding spillover effects within 20 major stock markets under both extreme and normal market conditions, using data spanning from January 2005 to January 2023. The results show that, compared to the traditional volatility spillover index method, which focuses mainly on average spillover effects, the QVAR model-based spillover index better captures spillover effects under extreme and various market conditions among global stock markets. The connections between stock markets are closer in extreme market conditions. The total spillover index of major global stock markets significantly increases in extreme conditions compared to normal conditions. In extreme market conditions, inflow indices show varying degrees of increase, with emerging economy stock markets displaying more significant increases. The outflow indices exhibit heterogeneity; emerging economies show consistent increases, while developed economies show mixed changes.

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Our paper concerns the question of whether there exist hedge assets during extreme market conditions, which has become increasingly important since the recent financial crisis. This paper develops a novel extended skew-t copula model to examine the effectiveness of gold and US dollar (USD) as hedge or safe haven asset against stock prices for seven developed markets over the 2000–2013 period. Our results indicate the existence of skewness and heavy/thin tails in the distributions of all three types of assets in most of the developed markets, lending support to the employment of flexible distributions to evaluate the tail dependences among assets. We find that USD is preferred to gold as a hedge asset during normal market conditions, while both assets can serve as safe haven assets for most countries when stock markets crash. Our simultaneous analysis of the three assets advises against a joint hedge strategy of gold and USD due to the high tail dependence between them during extreme market conditions. This result highlights the importance of simultaneous modelling of multiple assets in financial risk analysis.

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