The Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) has signed a third party CLS deal with ABN AMRO and will use the relationship to link its member banks to the foreign exchange settlement platform. As many as 50% of the group's members have already signed up for the service.
CCIL was set up by leading banks in India to address the need for an integrated clearing and settlement system for debt and forex transactions. Some of the country's biggest financial institutions, including State Bank of India, Industrial Development Bank of India, ICICI, Bank of Baroda and HDFC Bank, own shares in the venture.
The corporation's vice president, Indirani Rao, says the link with ABN AMRO was part of an "intricate project to get the CLS proposition to banks in India".
"We have watched with interest the path-breaking record set by CLS," says Rao. "I think the scaling that CCIL has attempted as a third party aggregator is unique in the CLS domain. We believe that CCIL as a settlement platform for banks in India can well complement CLS's own services because of its positioning and unique experience in this area," she says.
ABN AMRO is labelling the deal with CCIL as an "advanced third party" arrangement. "This phase of our work with CCIL is a milestone for CLS - and not only in India," says Dominic Silva, regional head of markets coverage, financial institutions and public sector, Asia Pacific at ABN AMRO. "The viability of the fourth party model has been proven and we look forward to working with CCIL to bring the rest of their many clients onto its fourth party services."
ABN AMRO provides third party CLS services to the likes of Bear Stearns, Bank Julius Baer, First Rand Group and Travelex. The bank claims to process one quarter of the global CLS third party volumes.
