Canadian Capital Markets Association (CCMA)

The Canadian Capital Markets Association (CCMA) is a nonprofit organization that was created to analyze issues arising in the Canadian and international capital markets. The organization is focused on being an active participant in developing and implementing government legislation and regulatory policies relating to industry practices in the capital markets.

The Canadian Capital Markets Association was created in 2000. The association is primarily comprised of industry experts, who work for many of the large capital market institutions in Canada. The association is comprised of six committees that focus on a specific area of the capital markets. These committees consist of the Board of Directors and Observers, Buy-Side Subcommittee, Custodian/Broker Subcommittee, Legal/Regulatory Working Group, Communications and Education Working Group and the Trade Tracking Analysis Subcommittee.

The Canadian Capital Markets Association is a national, federally incorporated, not-for-profit organization that was launched with the mission to explore ways to meet the challenges and opportunities facing Canadian and international capital markets. The overall intent was to enhance the competitiveness of Canada’s capital markets through a forum of industry experts who provide leadership and direction to the investment community. Initiatives of the the CCMA include communication, education and coordination of the various segments of the investment industry on projects and actions that affect multiple aspects of Canada’s capital markets.

Participants of the Canadian Capital Markets Association comprise dealers, custodians, asset managers, industry associations, key securities infrastructure, such as exchanges, the Canadian Depository of Securities (CDS) and Fundserv; back-office service providers and vendors; and other stakeholders (such as regulators including SROs).

The CCMA is led by a Board of Directors, representing the Canadian capital markets. It determines what initiatives the CCMA focuses on. Various industry segments, firms, industry associations, support and other organizations may also be brought into to collaborate on certain initiatives. Usually this work happens in the context of CCMA committees.

From the start, the CCMA’s priority was to facilitate the Canadian securities industry’s overall preparedness to implement straight-through-processing (STP) strategies while promoting efficient and timely trade-date matching among capital market participants.  A later CCMA effort in 2007 focused on whether to extend daylight saving time (DST) by five weeks.

Between 2015 and 2017, the CCMA led the financial industry’s transition to a T+2 settlement environment. The move to settle trades more quickly was designed to reduce margin and liquidity needs during times of economic volatility and lessen credit and counterparty exposure. This transition was successfully completed on September 5, 2017.