Friday May 20 2016

News Source: Global Exchanges

Focus: Short Selling

Type: General




Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited have announced further service enhancements to the Central Clearing and Settlement System (CCASS) which are planned to be rolled out in two separate batches in 2016.

July 2016 Batch

This batch of CCASS Service Enhancement is tentatively scheduled to be launched in July 2016. During this batch, the following enhancements are included:

  • Enhancement of collection and refund of additional cash collateral from Clearing Participants (“CPs”) with material Continuous Net Settlement (”CNS”) positions in Hong Kong market;
  • Removal of the 07:45 Settlement Instruction (“SI”) Batch-settlement-run (“BSR”) as well as the two morning SI matching runs at 07:30 and 07:45 for China Connect Securities; and
  • Strengthening of the security measure by shortening the idle time before CCASS automatic logout.

Q4 2016 Batch

A further batch of enhancements is scheduled for implementation in the fourth quarter of 2016.

The proposed enhancements are as follows:

  • Remove the restriction to block all delivery SIs of the same China Connect Security in which a CCCP has an overdue CNS short position – currently, if a China Connect Clearing Participant (CCCP) has an overdue CNS short position in a China Connect Security, CCASS will block all delivery Settlement Instructions (SIs) from transferring that stock out of the CCCP’s accounts until the overdue CNS short position is settled. This enhancement will allow the CCCP to transfer the stock out of the CCCP’s accounts via SIs up to the amount where the remaining balance concerned in CCCP’s accounts is not less than the CNS overdue short amount;
  • Enhance Stock Connect settlement operation efficiency – Introduce additional SI matching runs at 16:30 and 18:15, an additional SI BSR for SPSA at 18:15, and additional STI validation and STI transfer runs at 19:30;
  • Further automation of Nominee Service – New function in voting for disclosure of Shareholding Category Information via CCASS terminal for China Connect Securities to replace the manual procedure;
  • Netting of Northbound Collateral – Allow surplus Mainland Security Deposit (“MSCD”) to net off with Mainland Settlement Deposit (“MSTD”) shortfall in China Connect Market.

Click on the link above for further details.