JSCC is a central counterparty that assumes the obligation of one party to a trade and becomes the counterparty to the other in settlement, in place of the original counterparty. It replaces the relationships among participants with relationships with the clearing organization and guarantees performance of settlement1. It was established on July 1, 2002, with investment from the five domestic securities exchanges and the Japan Securities Dealers Association, and began clearing on January 14, 20032.

The scope of clearing expanded from cash transactions to listed derivatives, credit default swaps (July 2011), interest rate swaps (October 2012), and listed commodity derivatives (July 2020)2. The clearing obligation requires financial instruments business operators and similar firms to have the obligations from over-the-counter derivative transactions designated by the Commissioner of the FSA assumed by a financial instruments clearing organization or similar entity, and JSCC is a financial instruments clearing organization3.

Notes

  1. Japan Exchange Group, "JSCCとは" (About JSCC; our translation of the title) (checked on October 13, 2026), the section on the function of a clearing organization: the assumption of obligations, the guarantee of settlement performance, and the clearing organization being called a central counterparty (CCP) (in Japanese). ↩

  2. The history in the same "JSCCとは" page, and the company name and date of establishment in Japan Exchange Group, "会社概要（日本証券クリアリング機構）" (Company overview of Japan Securities Clearing Corporation; our translation of the title) (checked on October 13, 2026). The overview gives July 1, 2002 as the date of establishment and January 14, 2003 as the start of operations. The expansion of clearing follows the history entries from 2004 to 2020 (in Japanese). ↩ ↩2

  3. The Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (checked on October 13, 2026), Article 2, paragraph 29 (a financial instruments clearing organization is a person licensed by the Prime Minister to conduct financial instruments obligation assumption business). That JSCC holds the license comes from the history in "JSCCとは". The content of the clearing obligation comes from Financial Services Agency, "店頭デリバティブ取引規制関連" (Regulation of over-the-counter derivative transactions; our translation of the title) (checked on the same day), the section on the clearing obligation and the notification and publication of transaction volume (in Japanese). ↩