A Message from Leadership

We are privileged to serve as the foundation for secure markets – a responsibility our team embraces with pride and purpose.

Our team understands the vital role we play in the marketplace and are dedicated to operational excellence in service of our stakeholders. In 2025, we continued to evolve our clearing and settlement processes securely and efficiently, positioning the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) to support market participants and the investing public during a time of unprecedented change.

Throughout 2025, our team rose to meet external complexities – record-breaking volume and volatility, accelerating market evolution and heightened regulatory expectations. We navigated these challenges together, and I'm confident we have the right people and tools in place to continue building momentum.

Operational Excellence & Performance

OCC has cleared and settled record-breaking volume for nearly a decade, and 2025 was no exception: the organization cleared 15.3 billion contracts and logged its 32 highest-volume days of all time, including two that surpassed 100 million contracts. For context, twenty years ago, OCC cleared more than one billion contracts in 2004, and 12 billion in 2024.

These numbers tell a story of reliability under pressure, and they reflect the dedication of colleagues who kept markets running smoothly even on our most demanding days.

We continued to promote stability and market integrity by delivering clearing and settlement services for options, futures and securities lending transactions using our ENCORE system. ENCORE operated exactly as intended throughout record-breaking volume surges with no industry disruptions. I’m proud that our team’s focus on excellence was recognized with resiliency certification awards in 2025 by two external groups – confirmation that our efforts are paying off.

Our footprint in the marketplace expanded when we welcomed a major global custodian bank as a clearing member for the first time. OCC is now providing central counterparty clearing and settlement through its Stock Loan Program for State Street.

These numbers tell a story of reliability under pressure, and they reflect the dedication of colleagues who kept markets running smoothly even on our most demanding days.

Financial Resilience, Risk Management, Capital Efficiency

In 2025, OCC implemented enhancements to risk management and resiliency capabilities and worked to steward clearing members’ resources responsibly.

Intraday risk has changed as a result of the continued growth of short- and zero-dated option strategies. We implemented our Intraday Margins Initiative, which strengthened our risk management capabilities by better collateralizing risks occurring between settlement cycles.

We also enhanced capital efficiency for our clearing members. In 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission approval of an OCC rule filing was one in a series of changes toward that end. The update adjusted calculations between OCC and the National Securities Clearing Corporation and now more closely aligns liquidity needs with the clearing risk OCC manages.

We were pleased to implement a fee holiday in 2025 that allowed OCC to return excess capital to market participants and clearing members. Importantly, we did this while maintaining sufficient capital to remain in compliance with our Capital Management Policy and regulatory requirements.

OCC implemented enhancements to risk management and resiliency capabilities and worked to steward clearing members' resources responsibly.

Renaissance Initiative Progress

We made significant progress to move to the final stages of fully deploying the Renaissance Initiative, which includes launching Ovation, our new clearing system that will replace the current clearing system, ENCORE. We remain committed to getting this right by prioritizing accuracy and operability over speed. While this required us to pause external testing in 2025, we're using this time to ensure Ovation delivers the optimal experience our market participants deserve when external testing resumes in 2026. I'm encouraged by the progress we're making and the clarity we've gained through our internal initiatives.

Looking ahead, OCC intends to initiate Production Parallel testing in Q3 2026. During this phase, Ovation will operate concurrently with ENCORE, allowing clearing members to review and compare outputs month over month.

We’re setting the stage for further efficiencies and opportunities to support rapidly changing markets as we execute the final phases of our plan to launch Ovation.

We remain committed to getting this right by prioritizing accuracy and operability over speed.

Investing in Our People & Our Future

Our people are our strength. In 2025, we invested in our team through new leadership and mentoring programs, AI-powered learning tools, and readiness interviews that led to meaningful improvements in communication, work-life balance, and career guidance. When employees tell us what they need and we respond, everyone benefits.

We also welcomed exceptional talent to help guide OCC's future. In 2025, we welcomed J.P. Morgan’s Michael Kurd to our Board of Directors, and announced Steve Luparello as the new Chairman of the Board. Both bring incredible depth and breadth of experience and are committed to building a better and stronger OCC.

Matt Rathbun joined as our new Chief Security Officer, bringing more than 25 years of security and technology experience to the role. He’s building on the strong foundation established by our security team, helping to ensure Ovation launches securely while strengthening our cybersecurity posture as OCC continues to evolve.

OCC was proud to be recognized again by BuiltIn on its “Best Places to Work” lists in Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, DC. And we were awarded the 2025 “Excellence in Resilience Award” from Everbridge while also maintaining our ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management certification.

Our people are our strength.

Looking ahead to 2026, I'm energized by the foundation we've built. Financial markets are transforming faster than we've seen in recent history – driven by AI advances and the shift toward a continuous trading model – and OCC is positioning itself to lead through this evolution.

The momentum we began building in late 2025 gives me confidence in what's ahead. With Ovation nearing launch, our enhanced risk management capabilities in place, and our team's continued dedication, we're ready to fulfill our responsibility as the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization.

As investor demand and technological innovation drove the expansion of trading hours in 2025, OCC provided our perspective in this white paper, outlining how the industry can support a continuous trading model through a phased approach.

Serving as the foundation for secure markets in this environment requires the most efficient, agile, and resilient version of OCC.

I want to thank our team for their resilience and commitment throughout 2025. With the right people and tools in place, we're prepared not just to navigate ongoing complexity, but to lead through it and fulfill our responsibility to the markets we're privileged to support and the stakeholders who depend on us.

Andrej Bolkovic
Chief Executive Officer

Financial markets are transforming faster than we've seen in recent history and OCC is positioned to lead through this evolution.

About OCC

2025 Financial Statements

Year in Review