In the game of Monopoly, landing on a lucky square can reverse your fate in an instant. But real life is rarely so straightforward. For some market participants, the ostensible bonus of margin exchange relief that supervisors granted last year might simply be swapping one set of problems for another.

A “gift from the gods”, is how one market participant describes the €50 million margin exchange threshold announced for the fifth phase of non-cleared margin rules. At first blush, it promises to