ICMA updates its Guide to Best Practice in the European Repo Market
6 March 2025 ICMA’s European Repo and Collateral Council (ERCC) has today published an updated version of the ERCC Guide to Best Practice in the European Repo Market.
The ERCC Guide is a flagship document for ICMA and provides detailed guidance, best practice recommendations, and clarifications that are intended to support the well-organised trading and settlement of repos. Comprising 170 pages, the ERCC Guide is among the most substantial and well-established industry self-regulatory guidance across the entire financial market.
By setting standards and best practices, the Guide helps to avoid uncertainty and disagreements among market participants, helping to foster a more efficient and orderly repo market in Europe and beyond.
This latest document reflects in-depth discussions and consultations with ERCC members which led to updates in several key areas of best practice including:
- Resilience and recovery of trading and post-trading infrastructure
- The impact of CSD and SSS outages
- Template agreement for bilateral pair-offs
- Sanctions
- Cancellation of trades made in error on automatic trading systems
- Making prices on automatic trading systems
- Off-market prices on automated (RFQ) trading systems
- Repo portfolio transfers between LDI pension fund managers
- Buy-outs of LDI repo portfolios
For easier comparison, the Guide itself was published along with a blackline version which highlights all the latest changes compared to the previous version of the document published in November 2023.
The ERCC Guide to Best Practice in the European Repo Market is authored by Richard Comotto and was first published in 2014. Since then it has been regularly reviewed and updated to make sure that the document continues to accurately reflect current market practice. The review process is driven by a dedicated working group, the ERCC’s Best Practice Working Group, with input from both the ERCC Committee and the ERCC Operations Group. Members who are interested to get involved in the best practice discussions or the ERCC more broadly, please reach out to ercc@icmagroup.org.
Download the ERCC Guide to Best Practice in the European Repo Market.
