To reduce the chance that a financial meltdown like that of 2007-2008 will recur, regulators are now seeking to buttress institutions for the longer-run – at least when they can turn their attention from immediate crises like those of Greece’s debt, America’s ceiling on governmental borrowing, and the potential eurozone contagion from sovereign debt to bank debt. Central to their effort has been to bolster clearinghouses for derivatives – instruments that exacerbated the implosion at AIG and others in the last financial crisis. But a clearinghouse is no panacea, and its limits, although easy to miss, are far-reaching.

When a company seeks to protect itself from currency fluctuation, it can reduce its exposure to the target currency with a derivative (for example, it promises to pay its trading partner if the euro rises, but gets paid if it falls). Although the company using the derivative reduces its exposure to the risk of a failing euro, the derivative comes packaged with a new risk – counterparty risk. The company risks that if its trading partner fails – as AIG, Bear Stearns, and Lehman did – it won’t be paid if the euro falls.

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