SIX Securities Services, the post-trade securities division of infrastructure and exchange operator SIX Group, has appointed Urs Wieland as CEO of its clearing and central counterparty (CCP) business, SIX x-clear. He succeeds Marco Strimer, who has led SIX x-clear for the past six years.
In addition, Tomas Kindler, former managing director of post-trade processing firm LinkUp Markets has joined SIX x-clear as head of clearing relations.
Wieland has been with SIX Securities Services since 1996, most recently as head of operation risk management and deputy CEO of SIX x-clear. In his new role, he will focus on improving the firm's risk management and compliance activities.
Together Wieland and Kindler will also concentrate on expanding x-clear's international business and executing the interoperability agreement re-established in May this year with fellow CCP LCH.Clearnet which allows them to offer competing clearing services on the London Stock Exchange which should drive down clearing fees, lowering the overall cost of trading. SIX x-clear also acts as the CCP for SIX Swiss Exchange.
Interoperability between SIX x-clear and fellow CCPs, EuroCCP and EMCF, has been approved in principal by regulators, however EMCF has said that it will not participate in any arrangements as it does not expect that major exchanges will support them.
As a consequence, EuroCCP, LCH.Clearnet and SIX x-clear have developed a Preferred Interoperable Clearing Service which will be launched at the end of July on multilateral trading facility (MTF) BATS Europe. This provides a choice of clearer; however if one side of a trade does not actively select a preference, the default clearer, EMCF, will be used for both sides.