WASHINGTON, April 15, 2026 — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission approved coordinated exemptive relief to expand customer cross-margining in the U.S. Treasury market, allowing certain eligible intermediaries to offer customer cross-margining with margin offsets across cleared cash Treasury positions and Treasury futures.
The measures extend a framework that had previously been available only to clearing members and form part of broader efforts to strengthen liquidity, resilience, and risk management in the market for U.S. government debt.
The SEC said it issued a conditional exemptive order and approved a related proposed rule change filed by the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation, or FICC, tied to an updated cross-margining agreement with Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., or CME. The order permits qualifying dual-registered broker-dealers and futures commission merchants that are common members of both clearing organizations to make cross-margining available to certain customers, subject to stated conditions.
The CFTC separately approved a limited exemption needed for CME and FICC to extend their existing arrangement to eligible customers with what it described as appropriate safeguards. The agency said the order allows qualified joint clearing members to hold futures customer funds in a commingled customer account at FICC.
Treasury clearing implementation advancement
The coordinated approvals come as U.S. regulators continue implementing reforms aimed at broader central clearing in the Treasury market, a key pillar of post-stress market structure policy. Cross-margining can reduce duplicative margin requirements by recognizing offsets between correlated positions cleared at separate venues.
SEC Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda said the action completes another step in Treasury clearing implementation, advances the shared goals of the SEC and CFTC, and helps support market resilience.
CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said the joint action would support a more modern market structure by enabling more efficient risk management across related products.
Access expansion beyond clearing members
Before the new orders, only clearing members could cross-margin Treasury futures positions cleared at CME with cash Treasury positions cleared at FICC, according to both agencies. The new framework expands potential access to certain customer positions through eligible dual-registered intermediaries.
The SEC and CFTC said their respective orders will be published in the Federal Register.
