When Chris Concannon, an executive at Nasdaq OMX, testified at a congressional hearing in early February on credit default swaps and clearing, he knew US lawmakers would wonder why an exchange famous for trading technology stocks had anything to say on the subject.
So he pointed out that Nasdaq OMX operated eight clearing houses round the world. That week, the group bought a 22 per cent stake in EMCF, a clearer that acts for Chi-X, one of the new entrants in European share trading.
