High KRX clearing fees driving won swaps offshore: Bank of Korea

Central bank says dealers are moving trades offshore to avoid KRX's high cost

High clearing fees on the Korea Exchange (KRX) means that won swap dealers with the capacity to do so are conducting their trades via offshore bilateral swaps in order to avoid the onshore clearing mandate, according to a January study by the Bank of Korea (BOK).

Korea introduced mandatory clearing of won swaps of up to 10 years on June 30 last year and in September Risk.net reported that global banks had responded to this by instead using instruments that sat outside the mandate.

This trend was