CME Group has said its credit default swap joint venture with Citadel Investment Group will only be a clearing service. It had previously been planned as a CDS trading and clearing platform.

As part of its refocus, CME has issued shares in the venture to investment firms AllianceBernstein, BlackRock, BlueMountain Capital Management, the DE Shaw group and Pimco.

CME Group said several leading sell-side firms were in the process of becoming founding members.

Craig Donohue, CME’s chief executive, said the increasing participation in the project was a reflection of confidence in it.

“Our solution offers point-of-execution clearing of CDS trades, the greatest breadth of products to clear, which includes single name CDS, a comprehensive and transparent risk management system, the security of our approximately $8bn financial safeguards package, and an established regulatory framework to protect customer positions and offer margining efficiencies,” Donohue said.

Meanwhile, CME’s rival, Intercontinental Exchange, had cleared $3tr of credit default swaps by late September.

During the week starting September 28, ICE Clear Europe processed a record €136bn ($200bn) of European CDS contracts, bringing its total since opening at the end of July to €514bn ($750bn). Open interest was €64bn.

That week ICE Trust in the US cleared $91bn of CDS transactions. It has cleared $2.3tr of contracts since March and has $190bn of open interest.