Commerzbank Is First to Sign Up for OpenGamma's Margining Service

LONDON, March 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

Commerzbank has become the first sell-side institution to sign up for OpenGamma's new margining service.  This comes at a time when Category 2 market participants are just two months away from joining Category 1 institutions in the obligation to clear OTC derivatives under EMIR.  

Mandatory clearing creates an urgent need for institutions to run analysis to quantify the impact that clearing will have. OpenGamma's new hosted service, launched in January, provides access to margin analysis with no overhead required for data integration or local software deployment. OpenGamma for Margining enables customers to compare OTC and ETD margin requirements across multiple CCPs (LCH, CME and EUREX).

Nick Chaudhry, Head of OTC Clearing at Commerzbank Corporates & Markets, the investment banking division of Commerzbank AG, explained, "This agreement allows Commerzbank to focus on our OTC Clearing strengths, assured that vital margin analysis coverage we provide for clients remains in step with market developments - all at a crucial stage in the onset of central clearing.  The trend towards pre-trade margin comparison requests is marked and the partnership with OpenGamma provides our clients with access to a cost-effective market-leading analytics service."

"We are seeing increasing demand in the run-up to Category 2 clearing, as buyside firms need a cost-effective method of analysing the impact of initial and variation margin," says Peter Rippon, COO of OpenGamma. "From position data supplied by one firm, we ran OTC margin calculations across CCPs (LCH, CME, Eurex) for all the funds impacted by the Category 2 mandate. The initial margin requirements varied by up to 30%, implying £100 million difference in the required initial margin."

For more information about OpenGamma's Margining Tool, please visit http://www.opengamma.com/opengamma-platform/margining

About OpenGamma 

OpenGamma helps financial services firms evaluate, understand, and manage market risk in an open, transparent manner. Our software and services enable firms to optimize their businesses in the evolving OTC markets, improving capital efficiency and balance sheet management. 

Used by buy-side and sell-side firms, exchanges and CCPs, we bring a new standard of transparency to the industry. We aim to help our customers gain more insight into their underlying risk exposures, better assess the true cost of trading, and respond more rapidly to the ever‐evolving regulatory landscape. For more information, please visit http://www.opengamma.com     

About Commerzbank

Commerzbank is a leading international commercial bank with branches and offices in more than 50 countries. The core markets of Commerzbank are Germany and Poland. With the business areas Private Customers, Mittelstandsbank, Corporates & Markets and Central & Eastern Europe, its private customers and corporate clients, as well as institutional investors, profit from a comprehensive portfolio of banking and capital market services. Commerzbank finances more than 30 per cent of Germany's foreign trade and is the unchallenged leader in financing for SMEs. With its subsidiaries Comdirect and Poland's M Bank it owns two of the world's most innovative online banks. With approximately 1,050 branches and more than 90 advisory centres for business customers Commerzbank has one of the densest branch networks among German private banks. In total, Commerzbank boasts more than 16 million private customers, as well as 1 million business and corporate clients. The Bank, which was founded in 1870, is represented at all the world's major stock exchanges. In 2015, it generated gross revenues of EUR 9.8 billion with 51,300 employees.

Commerzbank's  Market Services unit offers a comprehensive service to manage post-trade activities easily and compliantly, from collateral solutions and trade reporting to OTC Clearing and custody.