FirstRand Securities Limited offers client clearing services as a clearing member of LCH Ltd, a central counterparty (CCP) which is authorised under European Markets Infrastructure Regulation (“EMIR”).
Our FRS Clearing Member Disclosure outlines the levels of client protection the CCP offers in respect of each account type and the consequent degree of segregation associated with each account type. All clients will have the choice between omnibus client segregation and individual client segregation.
- See the FirstRand Securities Clearing Member Disclosure document here.
Our EMIR OTC Fee Letter Disclosure outlines the costs and fees FirstRand Securities Limited charges for its derivatives clearing services.
- See the FirstRand Securities OTC Clearing Fee Disclosure here.
Clearing Account Onboarding
Clearing Client On-Boarding is managed within the Client Onboarding team via your local sales contact who will initiate the onboarding process on your behalf. A dedicated onboarding manager will be assigned and is responsible for the delivery of the onboarding process. Your sales representative together with onboarding manager will co-ordinate resources across our support functions, and your salesperson will act as your single point of contact for issues and escalation in the provision of our clearing services to you.
Overseen by your sales contact, our in-business and operations client integration teams will perform the following actions in each area:
- Legal: Assist with the clearing agreement negotiation with our legal and in-business risk departments.
- Risk and Credit: Conduct credit analysis, perform portfolio simulation and confirm limit requirement, as well as any other credit mitigation requirements.
- Compliance: conduct know your customer and financial crime compliance checks.
- Business: Present and clarify service offering including: Negotiation and documentation of the arrangement, the product scope and the dealing limits, margining mechanics & related fees/services, roles and responsibilities, methods of communication, including issuing an onboarding questionnaire to gather the data necessary for our internal systems, and our web application at LCH.
- User testing and training: Execute UAT, system training and go-live migration.
Your sales contact will have oversight of the credit application process for the clearing limits, working with our in-business risk team to ensure that requirements are understood, and approvals are in place, as well as keeping you informed of forthcoming service enhancements. Your dedicated sales contact is responsible for feeding your requirements into our product development process for analysis and prioritization.
The preparation period will include legal discussions to complete the initial on-boarding process and the onboarding process should typically take approximately 12 weeks to complete. The timing, however, will be dependent upon your turnaround time of the documentation, client engagement and the complexity of the set-up.
EMIR Refit introduced an obligation on clearing service providers to provide clearing services under fair, reasonable, non-discriminatory and transparent (‘FRANDT’) commercial terms. In accordance with the FRANDT requirements FirstRand Securities Limited has created a request for proposal (“RFP”) for clients to assist them in determining whether our clearing offering is suitable. Prospective clients can either use this RFP template or any other form of RFP.
- See the FirstRand Securities RFP template here.
