By Denny Gulino

WASHINGTON (MNI) – They are the least controversial choices of all
the pending Systemically Important Financial Institutions, posing little
inherent risk for taxpayers, yet eight clearing operations still got
many pages of new Dodd-Frank standards to adhere to Monday as they join
a club that many firms would rather not belong to.

The Federal Reserve issued its final rule for Financial Market
Utilities, the clearing operations seen as the plumbing of the financial
system that received the first official “Significant” designation from
the Financial Stability Oversight Council in late May.

The list of requirements for the financial plumbers was a small
sign of the mountain of new requirements facing those banks and possibly
some private equity firms, insurance companies and hedge funds when the
Council gets around to choosing which ones are big enough to earn
additional capital requirements and much more.

For the clearing houses, the new requirements are mostly business
practices taken for granted. They pose much less risk to the financial
system than banks because they have emergency funds funded by their
customers, and they have available mechanisms to claim more funds from
participating firms if necessary.

In fact, the Fed’s requirements just published, which are effective
September 14, include a new provision that allows an exemption from some
of the standards “where the risks presented by or the design of that
designated FMU would make application of certain standards
inappropriate.”

The clearing operations already designated as SIFIs are those that
serve the major market sectors, such as the Depository Trust Company,
the clearing operations of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Options
Clearing Corporation and the others which are well known market
intermediaries. More such firms may be designated in the future.

But most of the intense interest in SIFIs is focused on those firms
that may not be the obvious top banks and for which there is a question
about membership in the exclusive club of FSOC favorites.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, for instance, was asked by
lawmakers last week whether AIG would be a SIFI. Geithner, the chairman
of the council of regulators, couldn’t comment beyond saying the
insurance firm was vastly different now compared to when it had to be
bailed out by Treasury.

** MNI Washington Bureau: 202-371-2121 **

[TOPICS: MK$$$$,M$U$$$,MMUFE$]