NSCC Reaches New Peak Value of $5.55 Trillion on April 9, 2025
New York/London/Hong Kong/Singapore/Sydney, April 23, 2025 ‒ The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced significant achievements in handling unprecedented market volatility, showcasing the firm’s robust technology infrastructure, resiliency, and risk management capabilities. During the recent market volatility, DTCC reached new peak values and volumes across platforms and services.
National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC):
- On April 9, NSCC achieved a new peak value of $5.55 trillion, a 6.4% increase from the previous peak of $5.22 trillion on December 20, 2024.
- Additionally, NSCC reached a new peak volume of 545 million transactions on April 7, a 33% increase from the previous peak of 409 million transactions during the “meme stock” event on January 27, 2021.
- Q1 2025 monthly NSCC volume averages were 15% higher than the previous quarter and 29% higher year-over-year.
- Fail rates remain consistent with a T+2 environment, as they have since T+1 was introduced in the U.S. in May 2024.
Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC):
- As previously announced, FICC’s Government Securities Division (GSD) hit a new peak of over $11 trillion on April 9, successfully processing $11.4 trillion in transactions and representing an 8.88% increase from the prior peak of $10.47 trillion on February 28, 2025.
- On April 9, FICC reached a new peak volume of 1.206 million transactions, a 23% increase from the previous peak of 978 thousand transactions on April 7, 2025.
- Q1 2025 monthly FICC volume averages were 4% higher than the previous quarter and 32% higher year-over-year.
Institutional Trade Processing (ITP):
- TradeSuite processed 5.8 million transactions on April 7, a 27.7% increase from the previous peak of 4.6 million transactions on March 11, 2025.
- CTM processed 3.74 million transactions on April 7, a slight increase from the previous peak of 3.69 million transactions on February 28, 2025.
DTCC’s Technology infrastructure has proven its strength and resilience during periods of extreme market conditions. Given the critical role DTCC plays in protecting the global markets, the organization includes capacity and resiliency as foundational to its design and build processes to ensure its platforms and services can meet market demand and manage increased volumes and volatility. Platforms are architected to support growing volumes, multiple times peak, to ensure scalability, and capacity is automatically increased as new peaks are reached.
“Our platforms undergo rigorous and continuous performance and resiliency testing to ensure they can handle peak volumes. At the same time, we continually invest in our infrastructure to ensure we remain able to manage market stresses and effectively deliver services,” stated Lynn Bishop, Managing Director and Chief Information Officer, DTCC. “All DTCC services continue to perform business as usual, bringing increased confidence and safety to the markets.”
At the same time, DTCC’s Risk Management capabilities have been instrumental in safeguarding firms, underlying investors and financial markets during stress. These capabilities were further aided by the acceleration of the U.S. settlement cycle to T+1, which took one day of risk out of the market.
NSCC’s start of day margin requirements following the elevated market volatility between April 4 and April 11, 2025, averaged $18.3 billion, with NSCC cleared activity reaching new peaks. A similar market price move observed in June 2020 resulted in margin requirements of $18.5 billion. While the margin levels are comparable, the cleared 1-day trading values during the recent market volatility were consistently larger than the cleared 2-day trading values from the 2020 period, highlighting the benefits of the T+1 settlement cycle.
“Risk management is at the foundation of what we do each and every day,” stated Tim Cuddihy, Managing Director and Group Chief Risk Officer at DTCC. “We continually monitor our risk management framework and margin models to assess risk reduction, performance, and predictability across a wide range of market conditions. All is done with one thing in mind – the safety of the markets, firms and underlying investors.”
During the period of elevated market volatility, FICC promoted safety and soundness to the U.S. Treasury Markets. Key risk metrics and reporting are made available to clients in the new Risk Portal, allowing firms to better monitor and manage risk exposures. With the recent launch of the 15-minute risk monitor, clients now have the same near real-time visibility into margin and risk exposures, on 15-minute increments, as DTCC’s risk analysts.
“DTCC has been battle tested for decades, providing safety and confidence,” stated Brian Steele, Managing Director, President, Clearing & Securities Services at DTCC. “We’ll continue to provide this level of performance, while looking toward the future with an innovation mindset that enables us to deliver new value and capabilities that advance the financial ecosystem.”
About NSCC
DTCC’s National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) clears and settles virtually all broker-to-broker equity, corporate and municipal bond and unit investment trust (UIT) transactions in the U.S. markets. Learn more about NSCC here.
About FICC
DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) clears and settles Government Securities (GSD) and Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBSD). It provides real-time trade matching, clearing risk management and netting across transactions. Learn more about GSD here and MBSD here.
About ITP
DTCC’s Institutional Trade Processing (ITP) suite of services deliver post-trade automation that increases efficiency and reduces risk, including central matching and standing settlement instruction capabilities. Learn more about ITP here.
ABOUT DTCC
With over 50 years of experience, DTCC is the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry. From 21 locations around the world, DTCC, through its subsidiaries, automates, centralizes, and standardizes the processing of financial transactions, mitigating risk, increasing transparency, enhancing performance and driving efficiency for thousands of broker/dealers, custodian banks and asset managers. Industry owned and governed, the firm innovates purposefully, simplifying the complexities of clearing, settlement, asset servicing, transaction processing, trade reporting and data services across asset classes, bringing enhanced resilience and soundness to existing financial markets while advancing the digital asset ecosystem. In 2024, DTCC’s subsidiaries processed securities transactions valued at U.S. $3.7 quadrillion and its depository subsidiary provided custody and asset servicing for securities issues from over 150 countries and territories valued at U.S. $99 trillion. DTCC’s Global Trade Repository service, through locally registered, licensed, or approved trade repositories, processes more than 25 billion messages annually. To learn more, please visit us at www.dtcc.com or connect with us on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
