15-Mar-2019

Commodities clearing successfully enhanced

BayernLB adds new products, exchanges and central counterparties to its clearing service

Munich – BayernLB has expanded its clearing services. As from March 2019 the Bank is offering all-round commodity clearing services for the underlyings electricity, gas and CO2 certificates. Clearing house ICE Clear Europe is newly enlisted to assume the role of central counterparty.The new clearing services come with customer-oriented reporting, binding service hours and a German-speaking team of experts at BayernLB.

“Designing products and services that serve our customers’ needs is our top priority. So we are very pleased that by becoming a member of ICE Clear Europe, we have considerably expanded our range of commodities clearing services,” commented Ralf Woitschig, member of the BayernLB Board of Management for capital markets.

By adding natural gas futures on PEGAS to its ECC link while gaining access to the ICE Endex and ICE Futures Europe exchanges via the ICE Clear Europe link, BayernLB is responding to its customers’ wishes. Good, expert service and customer-oriented reporting are also strongly in demand.

“This service gives our customers the option of clearing their contracts via BayernLB and it allows us as a bank to make an important contribution to energy supply in the industry,” said Michael Bücker, member of the BayernLB Board of Management for the Corporates & Mittelstand Business Area.

“We are pleased to welcome BayernLB as a clearing member of ICE Clear Europe. BayernLB now has access to a global clearing house and its choice demonstrates our attractiveness as one of the leading clearing service provid-ers to Europe, as well as our commitment to continue to service all our clear-ing members and customers, including those based in the EU,” said Finbarr Hutcheson, President of ICE Clear Europe. “We are one of the world’s most diverse clearing houses, providing services for interest rate, equity index, agricultural, and energy derivatives, as well as European credit default swaps. We look forward to working closely with BayernLB.”

BayernLB is a member of the leading clearing houses and acts as a clearing broker in order to provide these services. This lets customers clear their contracts without going through the complicated process of becoming a member of a clearing house.

The Bank has been offering client clearing for commodities in the spot and futures markets since 2001 via European Commodity Clearing (ECC). Since 2013 it has also been providing client clearing services for interest rate derivatives via LCH.Clearnet. In 2014 the Bank was linked up to EurexOTC Clear. BayernLB has been a member of London-based ICE Clear Europe since 2019.