The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. received approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission to operate a clearinghouse for trading of U.S. mortgage bonds.

The mortgage-backed securities division of DTCC’s Fixed Income Clearing Corp. will begin acting as a so-called central counterparty in April, the New York-based company said today in a statement distributed by Business Wire. As a CCP, the unit will guarantee settlement of matched mortgage-bond trades if one of the parties to the agreement defaults on its commitment.

The initiative is designed to curb risk and costs in the market for government-backed U.S. mortgage bonds, where trading totals about $100 trillion a year, the DTCC said.

“This is the first CCP to be created in U.S. cash markets in more than a quarter of a century,” Donald F. Donahue, the DTCC’s president and chief executive officer, said in the statement. “We expect it will greatly reduce risk” by offering so-called “pool netting services and streamlining the settlement of mortgage-backed securities trades.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jody Shenn in New York at jshenn@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net