A CME Group representative has confirmed to The DESK that the company is set to enter US Treasury clearing.
The news was first reported by the Financial Times, which spoke to Terry Duffy, chief executive of CME Group, at the Futures Industry Association conference in Florida. Duffy stated that CME will apply to clear US cash Treasuries this year. Under new SEC rules, from December 2025 purchases or sales of Treasuries by broker-dealers or interdealer brokers will have to go through a clearing house.
By June 2026, this will apply to the majority of repo trades. This will cause increased trading volumes to be passing through the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), a branch of the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and, currently, the only venue where Treasury trades are cleared. Competition in the space could reduce costs and traffic and prevent a monopoly.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Duffy stated that the existence of the FICC “doesn’t prohibit us from at least going and filing the application” to clear US cash Treasuries, and expressed his surprise at the lack of companies doing the same.
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