While working out the possible impact of the SEC’s proposal to require central clearing of triparty repurchase agreements, we realized that we short-changed the analysis of multilateral netting in our last post. Our explanation of the SEC’s example focused on just the cash side of the trades, which is to say the amounts to be paid. To appreciate multilateral netting fully, we need to consider the security side of the trades, what is to be delivered, as well. This post seeks to rectify our oversight.

Our previous post explained the SEC’s proposal (the Proposal) to require central clearing of all “eligible secondary market transactions” with a participant in the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC). In this post we review the benefits of central clearing cited by the SEC to justify its Proposal. We also discuss “hybrid clearing” and “multilateral netting.”