Obstacles facing dealers' dream of a global OTC data repository

Big banks believe the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation can be a unified global repository for derivatives trade data. But regulators aren’t convinced of the merits of a single repository and competing service providers aren’t giving up without a fight. By Ramya Jaidev

It is too late to build a single, global clearing house for the over-the-counter derivatives market – a dream dealers conjure up in their more wistful moments. But the possibility of a unified database for OTC trades is still alive, and there’s one obvious contender – the New York-based Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), a co-operative that has won a series of industry-run competitions to pick a repository for commodity, equity, foreign exchange and rates data. The DTCC already runs