WASHINGTON — The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today approved an order to grant a limited exemption necessary for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation to make their existing cross-margining arrangement available to certain customers with appropriate safeguards.  

The order permits joint clearing members of CME and FICC that are dually registered as broker-dealers with the Securities and Exchange Commission and futures commission merchants with the Commission to hold futures customer funds in a commingled customer account at FICC. Prior to today’s exemptive order, only clearing members could cross-margin futures positions in U.S. Treasury securities cleared at CME with cash market positions in U.S. Treasury securities cleared at FICC.

“Today’s joint action supports both the CFTC’s and SEC’s broader effort to strengthen the resilience and liquidity of the U.S. Treasury market,” said Chairman Michael S. Selig. “By enabling more efficient risk management across related products, this proposal moves us closer toward a more modern, robust market structure.”

The exemptive order will be available on CFTC.gov and published in the Federal Register. A related SEC exemptive order will be available on SEC.gov and published in the Federal Register.