Monetize Your Desk
How does a maker earn?
The spread, minus the funding cost of the margin. You answer RFQs with firm quotes and stand on the other side of the NDF. The rate you quote carries your bid-ask; the difference between what you quote and where you can hedge or hold is your revenue. There is no correspondent chain skimming the price on the way to you, so the spread you set is the spread you keep.
You post the smaller deposit and earn the spread. That is the whole shape; the rest is how each part adds up.
Why is the spread structurally tighter than a bank's?
Because there is no chain of intermediaries between you and the taker. A bank's price stacks the cost of correspondent banking — bank A to B to C to the client — and prices credit into the quote. You face the taker directly through one shared master agreement. No novation, no central counterparty, no per-client credit memo. The cost that the old plumbing added is simply gone, and you can quote inside it.
The price is your bid-ask, not a toll road.
Where does the funding edge come from?
From posting your margin in a yield-bearing token. Your initial margin sits locked in the SCA for the life of the trade — but it need not sit dead. Post it in sUSDS, a token that pays yield while it stays locked, and the funding cost of the margin drops. A lower funding cost lets you quote a tighter rate without giving up revenue.
| Collateral | Yield | Counted as |
|---|---|---|
| USDC | none | 100% of face |
| sUSDS | ~5% / yr | 98% of face (200 bps haircut) |
Over a 30-day tenor the yield runs around 2 bps off the cost. A longer tenor or a larger margin widens it. The yield works for both sides: yours lowers your funding cost, the taker's offsets its own — and the spread never has to move.
Yield turns locked collateral into working capital.
How does the margin you set become an edge, not a cost?
Because you set it per client, as a percentage of notional, and it is always collateral, never credit. A bank waves a trusted name through at zero and prices the credit risk into a wide spread. You do not. You set a collateral level — higher for a riskier client or a gappy pair, tighter for one you trust — and you win the trade on terms instead of on waived credit.
- Ask for more on a managed or gap-prone currency, where the rate can move in one step.
- Offer a tighter rate to a client whose risk you know, and take the flow.
The margin is your competitive lever. Size it to one thing: how far the price can move before a defaulter's collateral runs out during close-out.
What about fee tiers and volume?
Revenue scales with the flow you take and the spread you hold across it. A desk that answers more RFQs, on more pairs, with margin priced to each pair's risk, captures more spread without widening any single quote. One master agreement covers every counterparty on the venue — a new taker arrives already inside your agreement, so onboarding a client costs one RFQ, not one negotiation. The cost of adding flow is near zero; the revenue from it is the spread you already quote.
The cheapest client to win is the one you do not have to onboard.
What you do not carry
You never send a margin call, chase a taker, or file a claim. The contract removes a taker that runs out of collateral, at the margin line, before the loss reaches you, and pays you from the taker's own estate. Your downside is bounded by the margin both sides posted and the waterfall behind it. See Liquidation & Default Waterfall (~5 min).
Run the desk; the contract runs the collections.
Next: Whitelabel DF — Get Started (~4 min) — the partner who sends you flow, and how they build on the NDF you quote.