The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, announced significant achievements in handling “unprecedented” market volatility, showcasing the firm’s robust technology infrastructure, resiliency, and risk management capabilities.
During the recent market volatility, DTCC reached “new peak values and volumes across platforms and services.”
National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC):
- On April 9, NSCC achieved a new peak value of $5.55 trillion, a 6.4% increase from the previous peak of $5.22 trillion on December 20, 2024.
- Additionally, NSCC reached a new peak volume of 545 million transactions on April 7, a 33% increase from the previous peak of 409 million transactions during the “meme stock” event on January 27, 2021.
- Q1 2025 monthly NSCC volume averages were 15% higher than the previous quarter and 29% higher year-over-year.
- Fail rates remain consistent with a T+2 environment, as they have since T+1 was introduced in the U.S. in May 2024.
Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC):
As previously announced, FICC’s Government Securities Division (GSD) hit a new peak of over “$11 trillion on April 9, successfully processing $11.4 trillion in transactions and representing an 8.88% increase from the prior peak of $10.47 trillion on February 28, 2025.”
On April 9, FICC reached a new peak volume “of 1.206 million transactions, a 23% increase from the previous peak of 978 thousand transactions on April 7, 2025.”
Q1 2025 monthly FICC volume averages were “4% higher than the previous quarter and 32% higher year-over-year.”
Institutional Trade Processing (ITP):
TradeSuite processed 5.8 million transactions “on April 7, a 27.7% increase from the previous peak of 4.6 million transactions on March 11, 2025.”
CTM reportedly processed “3.74 million transactions on April 7, a slight increase from the previous peak of 3.69 million transactions on February 28, 2025.”
DTCC’s Technology infrastructure “has proven its strength and resilience during periods of extreme market conditions.”
Given the critical role DTCC plays in protecting the global markets, the organization includes capacity and resiliency “as foundational to its design and build processes to ensure its platforms and services can meet market demand and manage increased volumes and volatility.”
Platforms are architected to “support growing volumes, multiple times peak, to ensure scalability, and capacity is automatically increased as new peaks are reached.”
Lynn Bishop, Managing Director and Chief Information Officer, DTCC said:
“Our platforms undergo rigorous and continuous performance and resiliency testing to ensure they can handle peak volumes. At the same time, we continually invest in our infrastructure to ensure we remain able to manage market stresses and effectively deliver services. All DTCC services continue to perform business as usual, bringing increased confidence and safety to the markets.”
At the same time, DTCC’s Risk Management capabilities “have been instrumental in safeguarding firms, underlying investors and financial markets during stress.”
These capabilities were further aided by the “acceleration of the U.S. settlement cycle to T+1, which took one day of risk out of the market.”
NSCC’s start of day margin requirements following “the elevated market volatility between April 4 and April 11, 2025, averaged $18.3 billion, with NSCC cleared activity reaching new peaks.”
A similar market price move observed in June 2020 “resulted in margin requirements of $18.5 billion.”
While the margin levels are comparable, the cleared 1-day trading values during the recent market volatility were “consistently larger than the cleared 2-day trading values from the 2020 period, highlighting the benefits of the T+1 settlement cycle.”
During the period of elevated market volatility, FICC promoted “safety and soundness to the U.S. Treasury Markets.”
Key risk metrics and reporting are “made available to clients in the new Risk Portal, allowing firms to better monitor and manage risk exposures.”
With the recent launch of the 15-minute risk monitor, clients now “have the same near real-time visibility into margin and risk exposures, on 15-minute increments, as DTCC’s risk analysts.”
Brian Steele, Managing Director, President, Clearing & Securities Services at DTCC said:
“DTCC has been battle tested for decades, providing safety and confidence. We’ll continue to provide this level of performance, while looking toward the future with an innovation mindset that enables us to deliver new value and capabilities that advance the financial ecosystem.”