Futures customers should have access to a fund that guarantees their accounts up to a certain threshold, the trustee liquidating MF Global Holdings Ltd said in a report yesterday, Reuters reported. In addition to updating the bankruptcy court on his efforts to recover up to $1.6 billion in missing MF Global customer funds, the report by James Giddens also makes recommendations to avoid a repeat of the chaos following the major brokerage firm's collapse, including a "modest protection fund" that would help futures customers in the event of a similar bankruptcy. "A fund capped at a relatively low dollar amount per customer would suffice to make these customers whole very quickly even in a case with a shortfall the size of" MF Global's, Giddens said in the report. More than three quarters of the firm's customers had claims below $100,000, he said.
