CME plans to install a software update to CME Secure SFTP on Saturday, April 11, 2015. With this enhancement, CME will no longer support “Open SSH public key format” that is currently used by some of clearing firms to connect to CME SFTP. Instead CME will now support “SSH Public Key File Format (RFC4716)” effective April 11, 2015.

This change will impact connectivity to the following CME SFTP sites:

Web based “sftpng.cmegroup.com” IP: 164.74.122.33.
WAN connection to IP: 167.204.41.33.

To help with this enhancement, CME will convert the majority of the Open SSH Public Keys to SSH Public Key File Format RFC4716. Some customers with special public keys will need to convert their current keys to RFC4716 format. CME is directly reaching out to these customers and providing them with key conversion instructions.

Firms can test this enhancement now by connecting to the CME Test SFTP site. Below please find the site information and testing procedure:

Web based site address: sftpcert.cmegroup.com;
Web based site IP address: 164.74.123.120.
All public keys are copied from Production to the testing site.
Firms can connect using their public keys and using the same credentials currently used for Production SFTP site.
Firms can send a test file into the Incoming folder
Or Download test file “CME.Cipher.Test.xml” from the Outgoing folder.
When the user is able to access their SFTP account, upload or download the test file, then testing is successful.

Please note the following regarding the Test SFTP site.

Some firms who access the site for the first time might be required to add the site DNS and IP address into their firewall.
Other firms who rely on the DNS name only for the SFTP site, may access the site without the need to add the site IP address to their firewall.
CME doesn’t require adding the firms’ source address information for this site.

Mock Testing in Production on April 11:

We encourage firms to participate in testing their connectivity in production on Saturday, April 11, 2015. The Test window is between 8:00 A.M. to 12:00 Noon CST.

If you are interested in testing in Production on April 11th, please let us know by sending an email to ccs@cmegroup.com.

For more information please contact CME Clearing at (312) 207-2525.

NEW: UPDATED SMART Click Migration: Deal Management System (DMS)

Attention Deal Management System (DMS) Users:

Effective the evening of March 7, 2015, the Deal Management System (DMS) will transition to SMART Click. SMART Click is a secure web-based interface that can be used by customers to manage profile and user ID information.

Here are the steps required to maintain access:

1. Register for a SMART Click ID at www.cmegroup.com/smartclick

2. Activate your SMART Click ID

3. Beginning on March 7, 2015, Claim & Link your Legacy ID to your SMART Click ID: https://dms.cmegroup.com/

Please be aware, after April 30, 2015 you must use your SMART Click ID.

Additionally, DMS-New Release is now Smart Click ready.

For SMART Click support, troubleshooting or if you miss the claim deadline, contact Enterprise Application & System Entitlements (EASE) using one of the following:

· Phone: 312.456.1560 (United States)

· Phone: +44 203.379.3802 (Europe)

· Phone: +65 6593.5536 (Asia)

· Email: EASE_Clearing_Application_Request@cmegroup.com

Monthly-to-Daily Power Conversion Testing Scheduled for March 31 – April 1, 2015

CME is planning to execute monthly-to-daily power conversion testing at the end of March as initially referenced in Advisory 15-042 entitled “Monthly-to-Daily Conversion for Power Contracts begins on May 29, 2015” found at the link http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/lookups/advisories/clearing/Chadv15-042.html.

Testing of the Monthly-to-Daily conversion for power contracts in CME’s New Release environment is scheduled for consecutive days on March 31 and April 1 in the April contract. The product set to be tested is listed in the table below. The day-ahead power products will convert to positions in the corresponding strip of daily contracts on the morning of Tuesday, March 31, 2015. Similarly the real-time power products will convert to the corresponding strips of daily contracts on the morning of Wednesday, April 1, 2015. For additional details, please click here.

New June 26 Date for Submission of Additional Client Master Data

In March of 2014, CME Clearing published Clearing Advisory 14-127, which required that firms begin submitting certain additional client master data for risk management purposes in the normal course of business and to assist with default management. For futures accounts, firms may submit this data either by including it in the Customer Gross Margining (CGM) position file or by submitting a separate Margin Accounts Master file. For swaps accounts, firms may submit this data either by including it in the LSOC Collateral Value Report (CVR) files or by submitting the separate Margin Accounts Master file.

CME Clearing is now establishing a final date by which firms must begin submitting the additional client master data: Friday, June 26, 2015. The final date should give firms plenty of time to install updated code, etc. Firms that are not yet submitting the additional data may begin doing so at any time.

For further details, please click here.

New Web Browser Standards

CME Group is committed to our customers’ information security. To deliver the best security and customer experience, we are implementing the following changes to all CME Group web-based applications and services:

· Sunday, February 1, 2015 – Internet Explorer version 6 will no longer be supported

· Starting Sunday, April 5, 2015 – Only versions of Chrome and Internet Explorer released in the most recent 12-month period will be certified and supported

If you have any questions, please contact CME Clearing Services at (312) 207-2525 or ccs@cmegroup.com.

For additional details, please click here.

Deliveries

NEW: CME Group Delivery Dates for April 2015

Listed in the linked advisory are the relevant delivery dates for April 2015 Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Chicago Board of Trade, NYMEX, COMEX, and DME contracts.

If you have any questions, please contact CME Clearing Deliveries at (312) 930-3172 or clearinghousedelivteam@cmegroup.com.

CME Group Delivery Dates for March 2015 - Last Delivery Date change for the March 2015 2yr/3yr/5yr Treasury Note contracts

Attached are the relevant delivery dates for the March 2015 Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Chicago Board of Trade, NYMEX, COMEX, and DME contracts.

NEW: March 2015 Currency Order-to-Pay Charges

Listed below is the breakdown of order-to-pay charges per contract for the March 2015 currency delivery. CME Group assesses these charges on a pro rata basis among all longs and shorts settled outside of CLS regardless of whether your firm used an order-to-pay for any of its long transactions. The order to pay breakdown below is based on a per contract basis.

Order-To-Pay Change Per Contract
PZ	Polish Zloty	$0.35

If you have any questions, please contact the Deliveries Unit, at (312) 930-3172.

USD and EUR Interest Rate Swap Futures - Delivery Process, March 2015

Please be advised that the linked delivery process and schedule will be in effect for the March 2015 delivery cycle. All times are Central Standard Time unless otherwise noted.

Last Delivery Date change for March 2015 2-Yr (TUH5), 3-Yr (3YRH5) and 5-Yr (FVH5) Treasury Note Futures Contracts

Previously, the product calendar on the CME Group website ( http://www.cmegroup.com/trading/calendar/ ) erroneously showed Monday, April 6, 2015 to be the last delivery day for 2-Year Treasury Note futures for March 2015 delivery (TUH5), 3-Year Treasury Note futures for March 2015 (3YRH5), and 5-Year Treasury Note futures for March 2015 delivery (FVH5).

Upon review, the Exchange has revised the product calendar, in accordance with Exchange rules, to show correctly that Friday, 3 April, is the last delivery day for such futures contracts.

The following excerpts from CBOT Rulebook Chapter 22 for 2-Year Treasury Note futures define the schedule of contract critical dates for delivery:

21103. DATE OF DELIVERY

Delivery of contract grade U.S. Treasury notes may be made by a short Clearing Member upon any business day of the contract delivery month that the short Clearing Member may select. The contract delivery month shall be defined so as to commence on, and to include, the first business day of the contract’s named month of expiration, and to extend to, and to include, the third business day following the last business day of the contract’s named month of expiration.

21104. DELIVERIES ON EXPIRING FUTURES CONTRACTS

Deliveries against expiring contracts shall be by book-entry transfer between accounts of Clearing Members at qualified banks (Rule 21109.) in accordance with 31 CFR Part 306--General Regulations Governing U.S. Securities, Subpart O--Book-Entry Procedure, and 31 CFR Part 357--Regulations Governing Book-Entry of U.S. Treasury Bonds, Notes and Bills Held in Legacy Treasury Direct®. Deliveries against an expiring contract can be made no earlier than the first business day of the contract’s named month of expiration, and no later than the third business day following the last business day of the contract’s named month of expiration (Rule 21103.). All deliveries must be assigned by the Clearing House."

The corresponding contract terms and conditions for 3-Year and 5-Year Treasury Note futures (CBOT Rulebook Chapters 39 and 20) are closely similar.

For this purpose, Good Friday is a business day:

· Most important, it will is a scheduled trading day in CBOT Treasury futures and option contracts, on which daily settlement prices will be made for all such contracts, subject to a scheduled early close at 11:15 am ET (10:15 am CT). See http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/holiday-calendar/ )

· It is a regular day of business for the nation’s banking system. See http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/holiday_schedule.html

· SIFMA have recommended that it should be a regular business day for US fixed income securities markets, subject to a scheduled early close at noon ET. See http://www.sifma.org/services/holiday-schedule/#us2015

Because it is the 3^rd business day of April, Friday, April 3, 2015 is the contractual last delivery day for TUH5, 3YRH5 and FVH5.

Events & Announcements

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE – Good Friday, April 3, 2015

Please note the holiday processing schedule at this link in observance of Good Friday on April 3, 2015.

OTC Holiday Advisory – Good Friday and Easter

Please be advised that on Friday, April 3, 2015 (Good Friday) CME Clearing will be open to clear trades. Due to the holiday, however, there will be several impacts to CME Clearing’s processing and trade submission timelines for OTC products. For details on these impacts, please see the full text of this advisory at this link.

If you have questions, please contact the CME Client Services Team at onboarding_clearing@cmegroup.com.

Updated March 2015 Final Foreign Currency Settlement Prices

Please see the updated advisory at this link regarding March 2015 Final Foreign Currency Settlement Prices.

March 2015 Eligible ETFs and Stocks

CME Clearing accepts a select number of shares of ETFs and stocks for customer and house segregated performance bond collateral for Base Guaranty Fund products. Both ETFs and stocks are category 4 assets and are capped in total at $1 billion per clearing member firm. Please refer to the Standard Acceptable Collateral and Resources website for further details regarding acceptable collateral, haircuts, and limits.

For ETF and stock acceptance criteria and a list of eligible ETFs and stocks, please see Standard Acceptable Collateral and Resources website. CME Clearing utilizes a tiering methodology based on average daily volume to determine the number of eligible shares per clearing member firm.

Tiering	Average Daily Volume Over Last 30 Days	Eligible Shares Per CMF
Tier 1	Greater than 10,000,000	1,000,000
Tier 2	5,000,001 - 10,000,000	500,000
Tier 3	2,500,001 - 5,000,000	250,000
Tier 4	1,000,001 - 2,500,000	100,000
Tier 5	500,000 - 1,000,000	50,000
Not eligible	Less than 500,000	None

CME Clearing utilizes the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) as the custodian for the ETF and Stock Programs. In order to participate in the programs, clearing members must have an account at DTCC. For those firms familiar with the DTCC system, the CME’s account has “Repo” status.

Clearing members with an account at DTCC can originate free pledges of securities to the CME account or request the release of pledged securities from the account at the CME. CME staff has direct access to DTCC’s system to view clearing member pledges and approve release requests. Release transactions are not finalized until CME has approved the transactions. Clearing members have the opportunity to pledge securities in the morning to facilitate the release of a.m. cash calls at the intra-day performance bond cycle, or to request the release of pledged securities. The deadline for morning transactions is 10:30 a.m. CST. Clearing members have an additional opportunity to pledge securities in anticipation of increases in their overnight performance bond requirements until approximately 1:30 p.m. CST.

If you need further information about the ETF and Stock Programs, please contact the Financial Unit at (312) 207-2594 or the Risk Management Group at (312) 648-3888.

Monthly-to-Daily Conversion for Power Contracts begins on May 29, 2015

Beginning with the June 2015 contract month and pending regulatory approvals, we are introducing an important enhancement in the way that the majority of monthly NYMEX power contracts are processed at maturity. Please see Special Executive Report 7253RR at: http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/lookups/advisories/ser/files/SER-7253RR.pdf

Currently, the last day of trading for these monthly cash-settled contracts is the last business day of the contract month. With this change, the monthly contracts will terminate trading prior to the start of the contract month and positions in the monthly contracts will be transformed automatically into strips of positions in the corresponding daily contracts, thereby allowing individual daily positions to be managed separately.

For questions or further information, please contact CME Clearing Services (CCS) at 312-207-2525 or ccs@cmegroup.com.

For the full details of this advisory, please click here.

Change to Application of Full Value Margin Requirements for DME Oman Crude Oil Contracts

In an effort to enhance capital efficiencies for clearing member firms and their customers, CME Clearing is pleased to announce a reduction in the number of business days full value margin is required for the DME Oman Crude contract. Effective with the March 2015 DME Oman Crude contract, the number of days full value margin is required will be reduced from approximately 60 days to 45 days. Please click here for additional details.

Contact Information

CME Group Contacts
General Information	Products & Services	(312) 930-8213
General Information	Clearing House	(312) 207-2525
Global Command Center	U.S.	(800) 438-8616
	Europe	+0800 898 013
	Asia	+65 6532 5010
Performance Bond Information	Risk Management Dept.	(312) 648-3888
Position Limits	Market Regulation	(312) 341-7970
Clearing Fees	Clearing Fee Hotline	(312) 648-5470
Risk Management	Risk Management Hotline	(312) 634-3888
Collateral	Financial Unit Hotline	(312) 207-2594
Deliveries	Deliveries Unit	(312) 930-3172
Clearing Customer Service		(312) 207-2525

CME Group is the world’s leading derivatives marketplace. The company is comprised of four Designated Contract Markets (DCMs).
Further information on each exchange's rules and product listings can be found by clicking on the links to CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX.

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CME Clearing Notice: Week of Monday, March 23, 2015

System Updates

NEW: CME SFTP Enhancements Effective April 11, 2015