CLSSettlement
Membership

Mitigate settlement risk for your FX trades while benefiting from operational efficiencies, in addition to best-in-class netting and liquidity management. Our world-class payment-versus-payment settlement service delivers huge efficiencies and savings for our clients.


Our FX settlement service is available both directly, to settlement members, and indirectly, to third-party participants. Over 70 of the world’s most important financial institutions chose to be settlement members – and over 35,000 more use our service, including banks, funds, non-bank financial institutions and multinational corporations. We offer a number of membership categories to meet the diverse needs of banks active in the FX market.


Reduce risk, improve efficiency and increase liquidity

We protect our members and their clients from the most significant risk in the FX market – settlement risk. We do this by simultaneously settling payment instructions relating to FX trades using our unique payment-versus-payment (PvP) system.

We deliver huge efficiencies and savings for our clients, maximizing the advantages of straight-through processing to deliver operational efficiencies and minimize associated costs. In addition, our approach to multilateral netting shrinks funding requirements by over 96% on average, so our clients can put their capital and resources to better use.

Eligibility

Given the interconnected nature of CLSSettlement, it is critical that prospective members meet our eligibility criteria. These have been established to mitigate liquidity, market, credit and certain operational risks to the settlement service, our participants and broader financial markets.

Potential members that meet the eligibility criteria have the option of becoming a shareholder settlement member or non-shareholder settlement member. The membership benefits for each type are identical. However, shareholder settlement members invest in shares of CLS Group Holdings and receive the associated shareholder rights. Non-shareholder settlement members have a different commercial construct in lieu of shareholding and no shareholder rights.

70+

settlement members


35,000+

participants around the world use our services indirectly through our settlement members


6.5+ USD trillion

average settled each day


18

of the most actively traded currencies globally1


Systemically important financial market infrastructure critical to the orderly functioning of the global FX market


 




1Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Danish krone, euro, Hong Kong dollar, Hungarian forint, Israeli shekel, Japanese yen, Korean won, Mexican peso, New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Singapore dollar, South African rand, Swedish krona, Swiss franc, UK pound sterling and US dollar.

Awards

  • Best Clearing and Settlement Provider 2024 / 2023
  • Best Settlement Initiative 2023, FX Markets e-FX 2023
  • Best FX Settlement & Risk Mitigation Solution FX Markets Asia 2022 / 2021 / 2020
  • Best Trading Infrastructure Provider American Financial Technology 2021
Mask Group 173

Benefits:


  • Risk mitigation and management

  • Business growth opportunities

  • Capital and liquidity efficiencies

 


  • Operational and IT efficiencies

  • Direct participation in a financial market infrastructure at the center of the FX market

Settlement membership criteria

CLSSettlement-eligible financial institution:

A bank, trust company, broker-dealer, investment firm or an entity subject to prudential supervision by an acceptable authority.

Satisfactory demonstration of operation and technical capabilities:

  • Ability to submit, amend and rescind payment instructions to CLSSettlement
  • Ability to deliver funds in each eligible currency within specified times
  • Adequate contingency plans for maintaining operational capabilities.

Satisfactory demonstration of operation and technical capabilities:

  • Ability to maintain capital equal to or in excess of the minimum capital and capital ratio requirements imposed by the institution’s primary regulator
  • Minimum long term credit rating of at least BB- as determined by CLS.

Head or home office jurisdiction

Located within a jurisdiction for which CLS has received a satisfactory legal opinion addressing, among other things, settlement finality and netting.

Anti-money laundering requirements

Have procedures in place designed to detect illegal money laundering activities of its customers or other illegal activities.

 

Settlement membership associated financial costs

Shareholder settlement member costs Non-shareholder
settlement member costs
Initial account opening fee Initial account opening fee
Account maintenance fees Account maintenance fees
Liquidity usage fees Liquidity usage fees
Tariff table2 applicable to all settlement members Monthly minimum fees in lieu of shareholding. Monthly fees are based on the monthly minimum or the transactions submitted, (based on the tariff table2 applicable to all members), whichever is larger
Costs relating to connectivity to CLS (including SWIFT interface costs) Costs relating to connectivity to CLS (including SWIFT interface costs)

* More information about CLSSettlement pricing methodology can be found at cls-group.com

FX Global code

Using CLS products and services plays an integral part in helping you comply with the FX Global Code.