Membership is a role, not a subscription.
The Exchange does not have a single category of member. It has nine participant classes, because the market needs nine different things done and each of them carries a different obligation, a different admission test and a different consequence for failure.
A participant may hold more than one class where the rulebook permits it, and is barred from combinations that would put it on both sides of an assurance or settlement decision. Every admission, suspension and withdrawal is published.
Participant Classes
Class Groups
Admissions Published
Notice Before Rule Change
Common to Every Class
These obligations attach to every participant regardless of class. Class-specific requirements are additional to them, never a substitute.
Admitted against a published test
Requirements for each class are set out in the rulebook before anyone applies to meet them. The Exchange does not admit on relationship, and does not run a private list of exceptions.
Named and reachable
Every participant names the natural persons responsible for its Exchange activity and keeps them reachable through every session in every corridor it operates in.
On the public register
Standing is public. Admission, suspension, restriction and withdrawal are published with the date they took effect and the rulebook section relied on.
Separable on failure
Each class is designed so that its failure can be contained. Client positions port, custody is distributed, settlement runs across a panel, and no single participant is structurally necessary to the market continuing.
The Nine Classes
Grouped by the part of the market each class is responsible for. Every class carries an Exchange designation of the form GX-XX; the designation, not the participant's own name, is what the rulebook refers to.
Clearing & Settlement
Trading & Liquidity
Custody & Assurance
Corridor & Oversight
Where Classes May Not Overlap
Assurance and interest
An Assay & Assurance Agent may not certify material in which it or an affiliate holds a commercial interest, and may not hold Liquidity Provider appointments in contracts deliverable against its own certificates.
Custody and title
A Custody Participant holds material; it does not own or trade it. Corridor Operators likewise move material without taking title to it.
Settlement and position
A Settlement Bank takes no position on the Exchange. Where a banking group also clears, the activities sit in separate entities with separate reporting.
