On March 17, 2015, the CFTC amended CFTC Regulation 1.22 to circumvent a change to the current residual interest deadline applicable to futures commission merchants (FCMs). CFTC Regulation 1.22 requires FCMs to compute the aggregate amount of their futures customers' under-margined accounts at the close of each business day. FCMs must then place an amount of their own capital (referred to as residual interest) in an amount equal to or greater than their customers' aggregate margin deficiency in customer segregated accounts by the residual interest deadline of 6:00 PM (ET) on the following business day (CFTC Regulation 1.22(c)(5)).

This is required in order to:

Regulation 1.22 included an automatic termination date of December 31, 2018 for the current residual interest deadline. On this date the residual interest deadline was set to change from 6:00 PM (ET) on the next business day to the time of daily settlement, a more stringent timetable for FCMs to make these deposits. In November 2014, the CFTC proposed an amendment which received support to remove the December 31, 2018 automatic termination date, and keep the residual interest deadline at 6:00 pm (ET) on the following business day after settlement. This rule was approved and the December 31, 2018 automatic termination date was removed from Regulation 1.22. Therefore, the FCM residual interest deadline will remain 6:00 pm (ET) on the following business day after the computation is made, unless the CFTC determines to change it through a separate rulemaking.

The CFTC intends for this rule to provide a greater degree of flexibility to assess all relevant data, including the costs and benefits of revising the residual interest deadline. The final rule, which is effective May 26, 2015, also provides assurance that the residual interest deadline will only be revised through a separate CFTC rulemaking.