BME hosts WFEClear 2024 in Madrid, the world's largest Clearing event with representatives from more than 44 exchanges

• Javier Hernani, CEO of BME and Head of Securities Services at SIX, highlights SIX's commitment to leading the digital assets area
• The three-day event focused on issues such as the role of Central Counterparties, regulatory challenges and the role of DLT technology

Over the last three days, BME hosted the 40th edition of WFEClear, an event organised by the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) which brought together more than 200 representatives of various market infrastructures from all over the world. The leading Clearing meeting was attended by the CEO of the WFE, Nandini Sukumar, and the CEO of BME and Head of Securities Services at SIX, Javier Hernani.

Javier Hernani analyzed the highlights of the sector at the moment and focused his opening remarks on highlighting the crucial role of Clearing in financial markets. "As an industry, we face profound challenges, but Central Counterparties have made the world a safer place, as demonstrated in the 2008 crisis or, more recently, in the pandemic," he said. He also highlighted SIX's commitment to lead in the area of digital assets, "convinced that regulated markets offer a high level of security and trust".

He also recalled that the revision of the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) will require financial institutions to open active accounts in Central Counterparty Clearing Houses in the EU, which is an opportunity for SIX as it is licensed in the European Union for IRS, through its Spanish clearing house.

For her part, the CEO of the World Federation of Exchanges Nandini Sukumar, said, “it's a great pleasure to be here in Madrid, hosted by our member BME a SIX company, who have a long and distinguished track record in clearing. Our annual WFEClear conference is a unique meeting where we convene our CCP members, the leading academic researchers in the space, regulators and industry practitioners as part of our commitment to improving the understanding of the market infrastructure industry. We look forward to continuing our work in growing the pool of high quality research, generating ideas and innovation and adding to the sum total of knowledge about clearing and CCPs.”

José Manuel Ortiz, Head of Clearing & Repo Operations, Laura Bayley, Head of Clearing Services, and Javier Aguilá, Head of Clearing Architecture, also participated in the event on behalf of SIX.

The conference featured top international panelists such as Froukelien Wendt, Director for CCPs ESMA; Peter Youngman, Senior Policy Advisor Bank of Canada; Summer Mersinger, Commisioner, Commodity Futures Trading Commiission (CFTC); Robert Steigerwald, Senior Policy Advisor of the Federal Reserve of Chicago; Ricard Metcalfe, Head of Regulatory Affairs, WFE; Pedro Gurrola, Head of Research, WFE; Amar Radia, Head of Analytics, Bank of England; Burkhard Balz, member of the Executie Board, Bundesbank; Roberto Bermejo, Head of CCP Supervision& Post-Trading Division Deputy Director, CNMV; Christy Goldsmith Romero, Commisioner, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Pui Hoon  Loh, Director & Specialist Leader Markets, Infrastructures & Intermediaries Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS); Shengwu Du, Senior Economist, Quantitative Risk Analysis Section, Federal Reserve, and Takeshi Shirakami, Deputy Head of the Secretariat of Committe on Payments and Market Infrastructures, BIS.

Panels over the three days addressed issues such as the benefits, risks and implications of the integration of Central Counterparties, their role in the smooth functioning of financial markets and the legal and legislative environment in which they operate. WFEClear also hosted the presentation of academic studies on relevant industry issues such as volatility, the need to implement effective countercyclical instruments, the role that DLT technology can play in the future of the industry or the increase in liquidity that can be generated by shortening the settlement cycle.

You can see photos of the event in this link.

More information at https://wfeclear2024.wfecm.com/