CLEARING OPERATIONS

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2024

Cboe operates two clearinghouses, Cboe Clear Europe and Cboe Clear Digital, each of which acts as a central counterparty that provides clearing and settlement services.

Cboe Clear Europe

Cboe Clear Europe is a European equities central counterparty that provides post-trade services to stock exchanges, MTFs, over-the-counter (“OTC”) equities trades and an equity derivatives exchange. Cboe Clear Europe clears equities from eighteen European markets and the United States, as well as Depositary Receipts, ETFs, and equity-like instruments. In September 2021, Cboe Clear Europe began clearing equity derivatives for ten European markets, initially index futures and options and as of November 2023, single stock options. Through a novation process, Cboe Clear Europe becomes the buyer for every seller and the seller for every buyer, thereby protecting clearing participants from counterparty risk and allowing the settlement of trades in the event of a clearing participant default.

Cboe Clear Europe only assumes the guarantor role if it has an equal and offsetting claim against a clearing participant. For the period ended September 30, 2024, there have been no events of default for which a liability is required to be recognized in accordance with GAAP.

Cboe Clear Europe Clearing Participant Deposits

Cboe Clear Europe generally requires all clearing participants to deposit collateral to help mitigate Cboe Clear Europe’s exposure to credit risk in the event that a clearing participant fails to meet a financial or contractual obligation.

Margin Deposits

Margin deposits, which are predominately in the form of cash and cash equivalents, are deposits made by each clearing participant to Cboe Clear Europe to cover some or all of the credit risk of its failure to fulfill its obligations in the trade. Cboe

Clear Europe maintains and manages all cash deposits related to margin deposits. Substantially all risks and rewards of cash and cash equivalents margin deposit ownership, including net interest income, belong to Cboe Clear Europe and are recorded in cash and spot markets on the condensed consolidated statements of income. In the event of a default, Cboe Clear Europe can access the defaulting participant’s margin deposits to cover the defaulting participant’s losses. For more information, see “Default and Liquidity Waterfalls” below.

Clearing Funds

The clearing fund mutualizes the risk of default among all clearing participants. Depending on their membership, clearing participants contribute to the cash-equity and/or derivatives segment of the clearing fund. Although the entire clearing fund is available to cover potential losses in the event that the margin deposits and the clearing fund deposits of a defaulting clearing participant are inadequate to fulfill that clearing participant’s outstanding financial obligations, the clearing fund first uses the product class segment of the Clearing Fund in which the defaulting participants was active (see “Default and Liquidity Waterfalls” below). In the event of a default, Cboe Clear Europe is generally required to liquidate the defaulting clearing participant’s open positions. To the extent that the positions remain open, Cboe Clear Europe is required to assume the defaulting clearing participant’s obligations related to the open positions. Clearing participants are required to make contributions to the clearing fund that are proportional to their risk exposure in the form of cash or non-cash contributions, which generally consist of highly liquid securities.

Interoperability Fund

For the cash equity business line, Cboe Clear Europe has entered into interoperable arrangements with two other central counterparties (“CCPs”). Under these arrangements, margin is pledged to and from interoperable CCPs. The interoperability fund consists of collateral provided by clearing participants that is pledged by Cboe Clear Europe to the other interoperable CCPs, to cover margin calls Cboe Clear Europe receives from such interoperable CCPs.

Effective August 14, 2023, Cboe Clear Europe enacted changes to its rules, and is able to invest the cash collateral received in the form of interoperability fund deposits from clearing participants in certain investments, typically securities issued by pre-approved sovereign issuers and reverse repurchase agreements with overnight maturities. When investments are made in accordance with Cboe Clear Europe’s investment policy, Cboe Clear Europe receives the amount of investment earnings and pays clearing participants those earnings minus a set basis point cost of collateral. As Cboe Clear Europe is able to direct the investment of the cash interoperability fund deposits received from the clearing participants within the program parameters and receives an economic benefit from those investments, these amounts are included in the margin deposits, clearing funds, and interoperability funds captions in the condensed consolidated balance sheets and the related interest income and expense is recorded in other revenue and other cost of revenue, respectively, on the condensed consolidated statements of income.

Cboe Clear Europe Default and Liquidity Waterfalls

The default waterfall is the priority order in which the capital resources are expected to be utilized in the event of a default where the defaulting clearing participant’s collateral would not be sufficient to cover the cost to liquidate its portfolio. If a default occurs and the defaulting clearing participant’s collateral, including margin deposits and clearing fund deposits, are depleted, then additional capital is utilized in the following order:

•Cboe Clear Europe’s dedicated own resources: The Cboe Clear Europe default waterfall first utilizes its dedicated own resources in two forms and totaling 35% of Cboe Clear Europe capital requirements; the ‘first skin in the game’, equal to 25% of Cboe Clear Europe capital requirements before the use of clearing fund contributions described below and the ‘second skin in the game’, an amount between 10-25% of capital requirements as discussed in Note 16 (“Regulatory Capital”).

•Clearing fund: Second, the Cboe Clear Europe default waterfall utilizes traditional CCP risk mutualization, in the event that default losses fully exhaust Cboe Clear Europe’s dedicated own resources amount, whereby contributions applicable to a particular product class are applied first to any loss attributable to that product class.

•Pro rata contributions: Third, if the default losses caused cannot be covered by the first two layers, the non-defaulting clearing participants shall on demand make additional payments to Cboe Clear Europe on a pro rata basis in proportion to the amount of their clearing fund contributions to cover any such remaining losses, which is limited to an amount equal to twice their clearing fund contribution as established under Cboe Clear Europe’s rules and regulations. In this scenario, contributions applicable to a particular product class are first applied to any losses attributable to that product class.

In addition to the default waterfall, the liquidity waterfall is the priority order in which the liquidity resources are expected to be utilized for Cboe Clear Europe’s ordinary course business operations and in situations when additional liquidity resources and liquidity measures may be activated in case of a potential liquidity shortfall. Liquidity, intraday or overnight, is mainly required for securities settlement. In ordinary course business circumstances, liquidity resources include the collateral directly deposited with Cboe Clear Europe, FX swap arrangements, and reverse repurchase agreements, as well as the use of the Facility.

Cboe Clear Digital

Cboe Clear Digital is a digital asset derivatives clearinghouse and central counterparty that provides clearing and settlement of digital asset trades. Cboe Clear Digital is registered as a Derivatives Clearing Organization (“DCO”) regulated by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) and is registered with the U.S. Treasury Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”) as a money services business (“MSB”). Cboe Clear Digital is in the process of surrendering money transmitter licenses that were necessary for engagement with the Cboe Digital spot market. Before the surrendering process was initiated, Cboe Clear Digital was authorized by license or not subject to licensing to conduct MSB services in 50 U.S. jurisdictions. Cboe Clear Digital performs a guarantee function whereby Cboe Clear Digital helps to ensure that the obligations of the transactions it clears are fulfilled. Cboe Clear Digital attempts to mitigate this risk by performing internal compliance and due diligence procedures as well as implementing internal risk controls. Cboe Clear Digital's due diligence procedures include review of the personal and corporate information, financial position of the member participant, and monitoring of Cboe Clear Digital's risk exposure thresholds. A clearing member is required to deposit collateral, which is in the form of cash for futures products to cover some or all of the credit risk of its failure to fulfill its obligations. As of May 31, 2024, trading is no longer offered on the Cboe Digital spot market and, therefore, Cboe Clear Digital no longer accepts any collateral for spot products. As of September 30, 2024, Cboe Clear Digital does not expect a material loss concerning credit risk on any member participant.

Cboe Clear Digital Clearing Participant Deposits

Customer Bank Deposits

Cboe Clear Digital holds cash on behalf of its customers for the purposes of supporting clearing transactions. Customer cash may be invested in approved investments and any interest or gain received, or loss incurred on invested funds is recorded in the condensed consolidated statements of income. For the three and nine months ended September 30, 2024, interest on invested funds totaled $0.1 million and $0.6 million, respectively. The Company includes customer cash related to the clearing activity on the condensed consolidated balance sheets in margin deposits, clearing funds, and interoperability funds, with a corresponding liability.

Digital Assets - Safeguarded Assets

On July 1, 2024, the Company liquidated all digital assets held by Cboe Digital for customers. As a result, subsequent to July 1, 2024, the Company no longer held any digital assets – safeguarded assets or liabilities on the condensed consolidated balance sheets. In accordance with the SEC issued Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 (“SAB 121”), the Company included customer digital assets on the condensed consolidated balance sheets in digital assets - safeguarded assets, with a corresponding offset in digital assets - safeguarded liabilities. Digital assets – safeguarded assets totaled zero and $51.3 million at September 30, 2024, and December 31, 2023, respectively.

The following depicts the Company's valuation of digital assets - safeguarded assets and safeguarded liabilities as of December 31, 2023:


	December 31, 2023
Digital Asset	Number of Units	Valuation per Unit		Fair Value (in millions)
Bitcoin ("BTC")	821	$	42492	$	34.9
Ethereum ("ETH")	6,270	2,282		14.3
Litecoin ("LTC")	16,329	74		1.2
Bitcoin Cash ("BCH")	1,374	261		0.4
USD Coin ("USDC")	506,652	1		0.5
Total				$	51.3

Margin Deposits, Clearing Funds, and Interoperability Funds

The details of margin deposits, clearing funds, and interoperability funds as of September 30, 2024 and December 31, 2023, are as follows (in millions):


	September 30, 2024
	Margin Deposits		Clearing Funds		Interoperability Funds		Total
Cboe Clear Europe central bank account	$	1,262.2	$	186.8	$	241.7	$	1,690.7
Cboe Clear Europe reverse repurchase and other	63.8		—		279.0		342.8
Cboe Clear Digital customer bank deposits	5.5		—		—		5.5
Total cash margin deposits, clearing funds, and interoperability funds	$	1,331.5	$	186.8	$	520.7	$	2,039.0


	September 30, 2024
	Margin Deposits		Clearing Funds		Interoperability Funds		Total
Cboe Clear Europe non-cash contributions (1)	$	621.8	$	80.2	$	278.9	$	980.9


	December 31, 2023
	Margin Deposits		Clearing Funds		Interoperability Funds		Total
Cboe Clear Europe central bank account	$	361.3	$	140.1	$	271.0	$	772.4
Cboe Clear Europe reverse repurchase and other	2.7		4.1		55.6		62.4
Cboe Clear Digital customer bank deposits	14.0		—		—		14.0
Total cash margin deposits, clearing funds, and interoperability funds	$	378.0	$	144.2	$	326.6	$	848.8


	December 31, 2023
	Margin Deposits		Clearing Funds		Interoperability Funds		Total
Cboe Clear Europe non-cash contributions (1)	$	637.0	$	65.6	$	228.0	$	930.6

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(1)These amounts are not reflected in the condensed consolidated balance sheets, as Cboe Clear Europe does not have the ability to sell or repledge the amounts absent a clearing participant default.