The direct participants of the OMIP Derivatives Market are called Trading Members and Clearing Members, which take on the respective functions according to the role chosen. Besides these, there are also agents that provide complementary OTC transaction registration services, OTC Brokers and complementary settlement services, namely Settlement Agents.
The Trading Members are members of OMIP, participating directly on the OMIP trading platform, introducing orders relative to the contracts open for trade. In line with its legal status, or its positioning on the market, a Trading Member can become one of the following categories:
- Trading Member for own account (Dealer), introducing orders exclusively for itself or for entities that are under its control or within the same group.
- Trading Member for third parties (Broker), introducing orders exclusively on behalf of clients.
- Trading Member for own account and third parties (Broker-Dealer), introducing orders for both its own account as well as for clients.
Trading Member can also become a Market Maker. A Market Maker, acting for its own account and under the terms of the Market Making Agreement signed with OMIP, in exchange for other benefits, undertakes to introduce onto the market buy and sell orders with minimum quantity limits and maximum spread limits, for a given number of contracts and during a minimum predefined period of time.
Main requirements to become a Trading Member:
- To be legally able to act on the Market, being, obligatorily, a company;
- To be able to clear, be it by becoming a Clearing Member or alternatively signing a Clearing Agreement with a Clearing Member;
- To possess the appropriate human, technical and operational resources to execute operations on the markets managed by OMIP.
These participants are not market members, although they are recognised by OMIP to render intermediary services in OTC transactions between two direct participants (trading or clearing members). This position was created to, generally, allow the intervention of active brokers on the OTC market, giving access to the transaction registration platform and consequently present the registration of both parties in the trade, while maintaining the anonymity of the counterparties. To become an OTC Broker the entities must be legally able to carry out this activity and possess the appropriate human, technical and operational resources for this function.
The Clearing Members are members of OMIClear, which, through direct access to the OMIClear Clearing Platform, participate in the clearing and settlement procedures of operations registered on OMIClear. The Clearing Members register, manage and settle the operations executed on the OMIP Trading Platform, always acting as counterparty to OMIClear in all the registered operations. For more information, please visit OMIClear website.
These participants are not exactly market members, although they are recognised by OMIClear and by OMIP to provide settlement services to the market members. There are two types of Settlement Agents: Financial Settlement Agent and Physical Settlement Agent. For more information, please visit OMIClear website.