Laura Klimpel, DTCC’s General Manager of Fixed Income Clearing Corporation and Head of SIFMU Business Development, was recently named to the Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC) Subcommittee on Global Market Structure. As part of the Subcommittee, Klimpel will be co-leading a new workstream with CME’s Udesh Jha that will be focused on examining the impact of Treasury market reform on derivatives markets, including recommendations for cross-margining between futures and cash markets and changes to derivatives market structure from cash market proposals.
Related: Increasing opportunities for the Treasury market
Sponsored by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the GMAC was created 25 years ago to advise the Commission on issues that affect the integrity and competitiveness of U.S. markets and U.S. firms engaged in global business, including the regulatory challenges of a global marketplace that reflects the increasing interconnectedness of markets and the multinational nature of business. The GMAC also makes recommendations regarding international standards for regulating futures, swaps, options, and derivatives markets, as well as intermediaries. Members include financial market infrastructures, market participants, end-users, service providers, and regulators.
“I'm very honored to have a seat at the table to represent DTCC’s interests and those of our clients as these critical issues of global market structure are being discussed,” Klimpel said. “Commissioner Caroline Pham, who sponsors the GMAC, said our remit is to develop consensus solutions to the most significant current and emerging issues in global markets, including fostering safer and more efficient global markets. And to that end, international collaboration and coordination will be critical to promoting financial stability and access to markets.”
DTCC Connection caught up with Laura to learn more about FICC’s latest business initiatives and this new industry role.
DC: What’s happening within the FICC business lately?
LK: Things are busy at DTCC’s fixed income business! We are focused on expanding FICC's clearance and settlement services to a broader array of market participants as well as enhancing FICC's existing service offerings to further reduce risk and provide optimal capital and operational efficiencies to member firms.
One of the biggest initiatives we have before us will be supporting the recent proposal from the SEC to increase cleared activity in U.S. Treasuries, to reinforce risk management and market stability through uniform risk management practices. Right now, as it is currently written, the SEC’s proposal would require a significantly larger portion of Treasury cash and repo activity to be submitted to a covered clearing agency. We have been regularly engaging with regulators, trade associations, industry groups, and a wide array of market participants to raise awareness and education regarding how an expansion of the clearing of Treasury activity could impact firms, and how FICC’s open access approach to central clearing could facilitate a potential expansion.
DC: Tell us about the CFTC's Advisory Committees and GMAC’s role within financial services sector.
LK: The CFTC's Advisory Committees were created to provide input and make recommendations to the Commission on a variety of regulatory and market issues that affect the integrity and competitiveness of U.S. derivatives markets.
There are three subcommittees under the GMAC: Global Market Structure Subcommittee, the one I sit on, which is a forum for global collaboration on key market issues, from improving efficiencies in post-trade processes to enhancing the consistency and accuracy of regulatory reporting; the Technical Issues Subcommittee, which addresses issues like managing extreme volatility, minimizing disruptions to orderly trading, and protecting market integrity; and the Digital Asset Markets Subcommittee, which is exploring and delivering opportunities in the digital asset markets, with the goal of shaping a 21st century financial ecosystem.
I am going to be co-leading a workstream of the GMAC subcommittee that will be examining Treasury market reform’s impact on derivatives market, with particular focus on providing recommendations to enhance cross-margining across Treasury cash and Treasury derivatives products. This will be critical to improving the overall efficiency and resiliency of the Treasury market.
DC: What are you looking forward to in this role?
LK: In my role at DTCC, I also oversee the development and implementation of the overall strategy and prioritization of SIFMU initiatives, working with cross-functional teams and industry partners to develop strategies for building new products and services that mitigate risk, create market efficiencies, and reduce costs. There are far-reaching effects of the work DTCC does day-to-day, delivering on our important mission of protecting global financial markets, and there’s certainly alignment with the goals and objectives of the Subcommittee on Global Market Structure as we assess the larger challenges of today’s interconnected markets.
DC: What are some of key issues you will be focusing on with the GMAC?
LK: Building strength, resiliency, efficiency in the face of rapid technological, macro-economic and regulatory change: these are some of DTCC’s major strategic themes, and not coincidentally, they mirror some of the key issues that we will be focused on with the GMAC, with the subcommittees and with the various workstreams.
As our industry continues to evolve, DTCC is committed to playing a leadership role in shaping the future of market structure and protecting global financial markets.