On April 16, 2003, CME and the Chicago Board of Trade® (CBOT) announced that they had signed a definitive agreement for CME to provide clearing and related services for all CBOT products. Clearing Services began clearing for the CBOT on January 2, 2004. For current updates, please read the  Clearing for CBOT advisory notices.

This historic relationship between the two largest U.S. futures exchanges offers the following tremendous benefits: 

Benefits for the Industry:

• Capital efficiencies for clearing members by combining two substantial portions of their business under a joint guarantee pool.
• Significant cost savings achieved through common processing and standardized business practices.

Benefits for End Users:

• Collateral and capital efficiencies from combined portfolio margining to the extent that there are risk offsets recognized between products that were previously margined independently.

Benefits for CBOT Members:

• Creates a significant competitive advantage in terms of product development, strategic positioning and alignment with a strong partner. 
• Opportunity to capture value associated with clearing.