|
|
HOME
 PRODUCTS & SERVICES How to Access the Market How to Access the MarketThe first step towards access to the market is to set up a clearing agreement with one of the Clearing Members. Setting up a clearing agreement can take anywhere from a week to several months. The Clearing Member will go through Know Your Client (KYC) and Due Diligence procedures and if the client is approved, access to trade ECX contracts will be arranged. Once you have agreed to the terms of business with your chosen Clearing Member of ECX / ICE Futures, you can decide on two paths to accessing the market. Please note that membership is not a requirement to trade on the ECX market – the most popular way to market, in fact, is as an order-routing client. Members and order-routers enjoy the same level of access both to the on-Exchange trading screen and off-Exchange brokered trades (registered on ECX/ICE for clearing through the Exchange for Physical facility ‘EFPs’). The two access paths – Order-routing and Membership – are set out in more detail below. Option 1: Order-routing The first access route to trading ECX emissions contracts is to set yourself up as an order-router through an ICE Futures clearing member. There are no fixed costs as an order-router, i.e. no application or annual fees to ECX/ICE, nor any paperwork to submit to either ECX or ICE. Instead, you sign a clearing agreement to order-route through one of the Clearing Members. The Clearing Member will charge you a fee per trade. This fee will depend on your company’s credit, projected trading volumes etc. It does not cost anything to set up a clearing agreement; you only pay when you trade. Order-routers effectively access the market in the name of their Clearing Member. Nevertheless, as an order-router, you have direct screen access to execute your orders on the market. For both options above, once your Clearing Member has set your trading limits you can start trading either as member or order-router.
Option 2: Membership Apply to become a Member for ECX emissions contracts on ICE Futures. The process to be approved as a member usually takes 4-6 weeks. You will need to chose whether you wish to become General or Trade Participant Member, and also if you will be a Clearing (CM) or Non-clearing Member (NCM). The most common membership category for ECX is Trade Participant Non-clearing Member (NCM).
Non-clearing General and Trade Participant Members will need to have a clearing agreement in place with one of the Clearing Members to access the market. The Clearing Member will charge you a fee per trade. This fee will depend on your company’s credit, projected trading volumes etc. The benefit of membership is that the Exchange trading fees are lower (€2.00 per lot instead of €2.50). You will also have the ability to register cleared trades on ECX /ICE yourself through the ICE Block system, whereas order-routers must ask their Clearing Member to enter such trades on their behalf. Members pay the ICE annual membership fee as well as the annual ‘Emissions Trading Privilege’ fee, which grants you access to the ECX Emissions market. To become a member for trading ECX contracts, please note both the ICE and ECX annual fee will apply. The annual fees paid in April every year. Should you join earlier or later during the year, a pro-rata discount will be applied. During your first year of membership, you will be charged one-off ICE and ECX application fees. Every year thereafter only the annual subscriptions fees will apply. Please see the table below for the membership fees breakdown. The table below applies only to participants who choose to become direct members (option 1) of the Exchange. It does not apply to order-routers (option 2).
For clarity’s sake, both members and order-routers have full access to execution on the trading screen, the WebICE trading application. KEY DOCUMENTS |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
