LCH.Clearnet Group

LCH.Clearnet Group was formed following the merger of the London Clearing House and Clearnet SA in 2003.

LCH history

The London Clearing House was originally founded in 1888 to clear commodity contracts traded in London.  Both the Company and its activities changed radically in the 1980’s when ownership passed from United Dominions Trust to a consortium of six British clearing banks. At the same time, LCH expanded to clear contracts traded on the then IPE (1981), LIFFE (1982) and LME (1987). In the early 1990’s, overseas clearing activities were discontinued, leaving clearing of international business in London’s financial centre as the renewed and exclusive focus. Clearing of cash equities began in 1995, and in October 1996 majority ownership of LCH transferred to the whole clearing membership with the three exchanges acquiring minority ownership. During the late 1990’s and early years of the new century, LCH’s business expanded rapidly to introduce clearing for cash bonds, repos, inter-bank interest rate swaps and energy (gas and power).

Clearnet history

Banque Centrale de Compensation SA, which traded as Clearnet and now trades as LCH.Clearnet SA, was formed in 1969 to clear contracts traded in Paris commodity markets. It became a subsidiary of Matif in 1990, and then became an indirect subsidiary of SBF – Bourse de Paris when that body took over Matif in 1998. In 1999, the French markets underwent a restructuring with all the regulated markets in Paris being brought together and run by a single body – the Société des Bourses Francaises – whose trading name is Euronext Paris. In March 2000, ParisBourse, the Amsterdam Exchanges, and the Brussels Exchanges announced their agreement to merge the Belgian, Dutch and French exchanges to create Euronext.