ICE Trust announced that its two credit default swap (CDS) clearing houses have cleared $2.2 trillion in notional value to date and 24,000 transactions.

In addition, InterContinentalExchange, operator of the CDS clearing houses, said that BNP Paribas was approved as a clearing member of ICE Trust U.S. and is actively clearing beginning this week. BNP Paribas is the thirteenth clearing member of ICE Trust.

As of Aug. 31, 2009, ICE's CDS clearing houses — ICE Trust U.S. and ICE Clear Europe _had the largest pool of capital dedicated to a single derivatives product globally, with over $2.3 billion in cash in guaranty fund deposits.

ICE Trust has cleared $1.9 trillion notional across 22,000 transactions in North American CDS indexes since last March, resulting in open interest of $187 billion. Since its launch on July 29, ICE Clear Europe has cleared euro 204 billion ($290 billion) in notional value across 2,000 European CDS index transactions, with open interest of euro 22 billion ($31). ICE Clear Europe currently has 11 CDS clearing members.

Both ICE Trust and ICE Clear Europe are slated to introduce clearing for single-name CDS contracts in late September 2009.

ICE's buy-side clearing initiative is on track to launch in October 2009, subject to regulatory approvals, according to today's release. The framework permits firms to retain trading relationships and a range of competitive execution models while providing segregation of customer funds and positions, as well as enhanced position t and margin portability, stated the release.