In option trading, the buyers and sellers of option contracts do not directly complete the trading process one by one, but through the option settlement company mechanism.

(1) acts as the opposite of buyers and sellers in option trading. When the option buyer pays the option fee and the option seller pays the deposit or the corresponding securities, the settlement company is in the position between the buyer and the seller, that is, for the buyer, it is the seller; For the seller, it is the buyer.

(2) Settle all transactions of listed options. Due to the operation of the clearing company mechanism, there is no direct relationship between the buyers and sellers of options, and they are all related to the options clearing house. If the buyer chooses to exercise the option, it relies on the clearing house to perform the contract, not the seller. The options clearing house guarantees the performance of contracts for all traders.

(3) Notice of transfer settlement from the settlement institution. If the holder wants to exercise the option, he simply needs to notify his brokerage company, which will notify the option clearing house, which will transfer the settlement notice to a brokerage company, which will assign the transfer obligation to one of those option sellers. In order to ensure the smooth progress of the option settlement notice, the clearing house must find an option seller for each confirmed option buyer in its account books.

The organizational relationship between rights clearing companies and options exchanges varies from country to country. In the United States, futures and options exchanges generally have their own clearing houses and join commodity exchanges in the form of member companies, so they belong to commodity exchanges or options exchanges.

In Western Europe and Commonwealth countries, most commodity exchanges settle accounts through local trade clearing houses set up by international clearing houses. In Japan, accounting firms within commodity exchanges are responsible for settlement, and there is no special clearing house.