ICE said on Tuesday its US entity ICE Clear Credit plans to launch a Treasury clearing service this year subject to regulatory approval after ICE’s application to launch was formally published by the Securities and Exchange Commission, a key step in the regulatory process.

“We’re thrilled to see this next milestone as we work to familiarise customers with our plans to launch a Treasury clearing service later this year,” said Paul Hamill, chief commercial officer of ICE Clear Credit.

ICE Clear Credit is the leading US clearing house of credit default swaps (CDS) which ICE has chosen to host the new Treasury clearing service because the group sees parallels between credit and Treasury clearing.

Hamill said: “The rulebook underpins our access model, allowing customers to clear US Treasury securities the same trusted way credit default swap products are currently cleared. This model allows us to leverage the industry-accepted tools we already have in place, such as ICE Link, for trade matching, porting and connectivity across platforms.”

This is the first time ICE has addressed the timing of the US Treasury clearing service which will go live ahead of the US regulatory mandate to force firms to start clearing these products at the end of next year.

ICE said on Tuesday its plan to launch US Treasury clearing this year “will give the market an opportunity to voluntarily clear for a period before the mandate goes into effect”.

Hamill told FOW late last month the Atlanta-based exchange planned to ramp up testing of the US Treasury clearing service from September to include clients and partners, having already started internal tests.

ICE’s move into US Treasury clearing will see the US group compete in an increasingly congested space. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is the incumbent while CME Group and LCH are also looking to launch US Treasury clearing services.

Also last month, CME Group said it had started testing its US Treasury clearing service with a view to moving to full testing later this year.