EuroCCP is a European equities central counterparty that provides post-trade services to stock exchanges, MTFs and for over-the-counter (“OTC”) equities trades. EuroCCP clears equities from eighteen European markets and from the United States, as well as Depositary Receipts, ETFs, and exchange traded currencies (“ETCs”). Through a novation process, EuroCCP becomes the buyer for every seller and the seller for every buyer, thereby protecting clearing participants from counterparty risk and allowing the settlement of trades in the event of a clearing participant default.

EuroCCP only assumes the guarantor role if it has an equal and offsetting claim against a clearing participant. Since July 1, 2020, the date the Company acquired EuroCCP, there have been no events of default for which a liability is required to be recognized in accordance with GAAP.

EuroCCP generally requires all clearing participants to deposit collateral to help mitigate EuroCCP’s exposure to credit risk in the event that a clearing participant fails to meet a financial or contractual obligation.

Margin deposits, which are predominately in the form of cash and cash equivalents, are deposits made by each clearing participant to EuroCCP to cover some or all of the credit risk of its failure to fulfill its obligations in the trade. EuroCCP maintains and manages all cash deposits related to margin deposits. Substantially all risks and rewards of margin deposit ownership, including net interest income, belong to EuroCCP and are recorded in other revenue on the condensed consolidated statements of income. In the event of a default, EuroCCP can access the defaulting participant’s margin deposits to cover the defaulting participant’s losses. For more information, see “Default and Liquidity Waterfalls” below.

The clearing fund mutualizes the risk of default among all clearing participants. The entire clearing fund is available to cover potential losses in the event that the margin deposits and the clearing fund deposits of a defaulting clearing participant are inadequate to fulfill that clearing participant’s outstanding financial obligations. In the event of a default, EuroCCP is generally required to liquidate the defaulting clearing participant’s open positions. To the extent that the positions remain open, EuroCCP is required to assume the defaulting clearing participant’s obligations related to the open positions. Clearing participants are required to make contributions to the clearing fund that are proportional to their risk exposure in the form of cash or non-cash contributions, which generally consist of highly liquid securities.

EuroCCP has entered into interoperable arrangements with two other central counterparties (“CCPs”). Under these arrangements, margin is required to and from the other CCPs and is deposited in an interoperability fund. The interoperability fund consists of collateral pledged by EuroCCP to the other interoperable CCPs, to cover margin calls EuroCCP received from other interoperable CCPs. For EuroCCP, the collateral pledged by the clearing participants is maintained in an interoperability fund designated account. EuroCCP does not have any economic interest or ownership in the collateral; therefore, these balances are not included in the condensed consolidated balance sheet.

The following tables present the Company’s total clearing participant deposits as of June 30, 2021 and December 31, 2020 (in millions):

(1) These amounts are not reflected in the condensed consolidated balance sheet, as EuroCCP does not take economic ownership of these balances.

Default and Liquidity Waterfalls

The default waterfall is the priority order in which the capital resources are expected to be utilized in the event of a default where the defaulting clearing participant’s collateral would not be sufficient to cover the cost to liquidate its portfolio. If a default occurs and the defaulting clearing participant’s collateral, including margin deposits, clearing fund deposits, and pledged assets into the interoperability fund, are depleted, then additional capital is utilized in the following order:

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EuroCCP capital: The EuroCCP default waterfall first utilizes its own dedicated resources ahead of clearing fund contributions of non-defaulting clearing participants, up to 25% of EuroCCP capital requirements discussed in Note 16 (“Regulatory Capital”).

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Clearing fund: Second, the EuroCCP default waterfall utilizes traditional CCP risk mutualization, in the event the default is larger than the allocable EuroCCP capital amount.

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Pro rata contributions: Third, if the losses caused cannot be covered by the first two layers, the non-defaulting clearing participants shall on demand make additional payments to EuroCCP on a pro rata basis in proportion to the amount of their contributions to cover any such remaining losses, which is limited to an amount equal to the amount of their contribution as established under EuroCCP’s rules and regulations.

In addition to the default waterfall, the liquidity waterfall is the priority order in which the liquidity resources are expected to be utilized for EuroCCP’s ordinary course business operations and in situations when additional liquidity resources and liquidity measures may be activated in case of a potential liquidity shortfall. Liquidity, intraday or overnight, is mainly required for securities settlement. In ordinary course business circumstances, liquidity resources include the collateral directly deposited with EuroCCP, FX swap arrangements, and reverse repurchase agreements, as well as the use of the Facility.