ICCL
The Indian Clearing Corporation Limited (ICCL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of BSE that functions as the clearing and settlement entity for trades executed on BSE, acting as the central counterparty and managing the Settlement Guarantee Fund for BSE's market segments.
ICCL was incorporated in 2007, making it a younger institution compared to NSCCL, which was set up in 1995. BSE initially used NSCCL for a period before establishing its own clearing entity. ICCL was designed to provide BSE with an independent, dedicated clearing infrastructure that aligned with SEBI's regulatory framework for clearing corporations.
ICCL handles clearing and settlement across BSE's equity cash segment, equity derivatives segment, currency derivatives, debt instruments listed on BSE, and SME IPO listings that trade on BSE's SME platform. The fundamental operating principles mirror those of NSCCL: ICCL interposes itself as the central counterparty (CCP) through the legal process of novation, computes margin obligations, manages the SGF, and co-ordinates securities transfers with NSDL and CDSL.
A significant regulatory development affecting ICCL was SEBI's interoperability directive of 2019. Under this framework, a trade executed on BSE can be cleared by NSCCL, and a trade on NSE can be cleared by ICCL. Market participants can choose their preferred clearing corporation, subject to membership arrangements. For a broker who is a member of both clearing corporations, interoperability allows portfolio-level margin offsets that reduce total margin requirements—an important capital efficiency benefit for active traders.
ICCL maintains its own SGF independently from NSCCL. SEBI mandates minimum corpus requirements and conducts periodic audits to ensure the SGF is adequately funded. ICCL also co-ordinates with BSE on corporate actions that affect open positions, adjusts futures and options contracts for dividends, splits, and bonuses, and manages the delivery-versus-payment (DVP) settlement process.
For retail investors, the existence of ICCL means that trades on BSE carry the same structural guarantee of settlement that NSE trades do, with SEBI providing oversight of both clearing entities.