Caroline Mandl and Hannah Lang
BOCA RATON, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to release a draft rule by summer for comment on vertically integrated models in which a broker, clearing house and exchange report to a holding company, its chairman said Tuesday.
The rule must consider “the possibility of having a vertically integrated stack, but also contain enough conditions that you can insulate the organization from other organizations,” Chairman Rostin Behnam told reporters at the Futures International Association conference in Boca Raton. , Florida.
In December, the CFTC voted to approve a plan for Chicago Cryptocurrency Derivatives Exchange and brokerage Bitnomial to also act as its own registered clearinghouse.
This was the first time the commodities regulator voted to create a vertically integrated market structure.
Behnam said integrated structures have become more common, so much so that the CFTC plans to publish a draft rule by summer, open it for comment and then finalize it by this time next year.
“This has gone from an isolated incident to a trend. And when that became a trend, I made the decision, “Okay, this is going to require policy,” the CFTC Chairman said.