Exchanges are centralized places where certain securities, commodities, derivatives, and other financial instruments are traded. In order to facilitate trading among buyers and sellers of these products, exchanges take the central position of being the counterparty to both buyers and the sellers of the product. This is done to remove the possibility of disputes that may arise from the non-performance of the counterparty. The exchange guarantees trades will be honored. This creates credit risk for the exchange attributable to the buyers and the sellers of its products. To address the potential loss due to the credit risk undertaken by exchanges from these buyers and sellers of the exchange traded products, exchanges demand certain margin requirements from their counterparties.