Murex
The clock is ticking: How intraday repo is rewriting the rules of liquidity management
09 June 2026
Rising rates, compressing settlement cycles, and the emergence of DLT-based platforms have thrust intraday repo into the institutional spotlight. Murex’s Ramzi Khemakhem, head of repo and secured funding product management, and Dorothy Queant, securities finance connectivity manager, explain why the economics have shifted
Image: stock.adobe.com/Jodie
Intraday repo — once a niche instrument used by a handful of sophisticated treasury desks — is moving rapidly into mainstream institutional finance.
The convergence of higher interest rates, tighter regulatory capital constraints, and the arrival of distributed ledger technology (DLT) platforms have created both the incentive and the infrastructure for firms to manage liquidity at a finer granularity than ever before.
Intraday repo has been around for years. What has changed in the market to make it more relevant today?
Ramzi Khemakhem: The economics have fundamentally shifted. During the 2010s, cheap funding and abundant central bank liquidity meant there was little incentive to be precise about intraday cash management. Holding buffers was inexpensive. That is no longer the case. Higher policy rates have pushed up the opportunity cost of idle cash significantly — holding large intraday reserves ‘just in case’ is now genuinely expensive. At the same time, regulatory constraints such as the Supplementary Leverage Ratio and Basel III equivalents have raised the capital cost of traditional daylight credit lines.
The pressure from both sides is forcing institutions to find smarter, more targeted ways to source liquidity.
How much is T+1 settlement contributing to this?
Dorothy Queant: Considerably. The move to T+1 in North America has compressed the funding window dramatically. Same-day allocation and affirmation mean institutions have to organise funding within hours of trade execution rather than across the full settlement cycle.
As regulators and industry bodies push towards T+1 globally — and ultimately T+0 — firms that can mobilise liquidity intraday, on a secured basis, at fine time increments, will have a meaningful cost advantage over those that cannot.
For those less familiar with the mechanics, what makes intraday repo structurally attractive compared to overnight repo or unsecured borrowing?
Khemakhem: The core appeal is precision. Instead of taking on overnight repo or unsecured borrowing to cover a cash shortfall that may last only a few hours, firms can source liquidity for exactly the duration they need it. Interest is charged only for the fraction of the day the cash is held — down to the minute — within a transaction protected by a Global Master Repurchase Agreement.
A recent study has shown cost reductions of around 50 per cent attributable to this pay-for-use structure and the reduction in balance sheet charges. There is also a regulatory angle: many intraday transactions currently fall outside the US Treasury clearing mandate, which allows users to avoid certain balance sheet effects and central clearing fees that cleared repo trades cannot escape.
Who gains on the other side of the trade — the cash providers?
Queant: Absolutely. Cash providers can deploy surplus liquidity through reverse repo during the day, generating incremental returns on funds that would otherwise sit idle before being reinvested overnight. The product is also operationally straightforward for them — same-day settlement and unwind eliminate the need for mark-to-market and variation margin adjustments, reducing friction considerably.
DLT platforms are central to this conversation. What does DLT actually add that traditional infrastructure cannot deliver?
Khemakhem: Speed and programmability, primarily. DLT allows counterparties to execute and settle intraday repo transactions near-instantaneously via atomic delivery-versus-payment — cash and collateral transfer simultaneously, which removes settlement risk. Smart contracts can automate intraday unwinds aligned with payment cut-offs and settlement runs. The shared ledger eliminates reconciliation needs and allows multiple intraday cycles without accumulating operational overhead. There is also the longer-term potential for 24/7 availability, which would dramatically reduce the cost of carrying cash over nights and weekends.
Has the legal framework kept pace with the technology?
Queant: It has been catching up. The GMRA Digital Assets Annex now explicitly covers tokenisation, DLT workflows, and intraday structures, which provides a recognised contractual foundation for digital financing. That matters — without legal clarity, even technically sound transactions carry risk that institutions cannot accept.
If the settlement piece is increasingly solved, what is the harder problem?
Queant: Integration. Digital settlement is necessary but not sufficient. Firms are quickly learning that intraday repo will only scale if it fits into the whole process — booking, lifecycle management, real-time inventory, risk monitoring, funding cost attribution, regulatory reporting. The questions are practical ones: if a trade opens and closes within a single morning, how is it booked? Which system holds the authoritative position? How does treasury attribute funding costs minute-by-minute? How does the risk team monitor exposure as it evolves in real time? The digital platform captures the settlement, but everything else has to keep pace.
So this is less a technology overhaul and more an integration exercise?
Khemakhem: Exactly. Firms must align smart contract parameters with internal rules, establish interfaces between digital settlement and treasury and risk systems, adapt booking workflows to handle precise timestamps, and ensure position-keeping reflects movements as they occur. These are subtle adjustments, but they are the ones that determine whether intraday repo becomes a scalable extension of existing operations or remains an isolated proof of concept.
Where does Murex fit into this architecture?
Khemakhem: For our clients, most of the required architecture is already in place within MX.3. The platform models intraday repo economics natively — interest accrued by the minute, precise payoff structures — so desks have full visibility of the cost of intraday borrowing under both internal pricing and regulatory constraints. It supports high-velocity booking workflows that mirror the pace of intraday activity: trades can be opened, modified, and unwound rapidly with lifecycle events fully aligned to settlement status. Real-time, firm-wide inventory is a key differentiator — securities and cash positions across desks, custodians, and wallets are consolidated, which is essential when timing and asset availability are critical.
How do you see the market developing from here?
Queant: The direction is clear — hybrid. Digital platforms provide speed and programmability; established systems ensure risk integrity, lifecycle accuracy, and regulatory compliance. Intraday repo is reshaping how institutions think about liquidity, and the level of timing precision it enables is simply not achievable with traditional funding tools. As this hybrid model becomes the norm, post-trade infrastructure will play a central role in enabling institutions to scale intraday funding safely. The firms that treat this as an integration challenge now, rather than a technology project to be run separately, will be best positioned when volumes increase.
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