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One aspect of the report into the collapse of Lehman which has been overshadowed by tales of how the bank made itself look stronger by routinely manipulating its accounts, was the stress its failure put on the world's clearing houses.
This was especially so in Chicago, where the bank had billions of open derivative positions.
In the event the Chicago clearing house dealt with the mess, as indeed did the other clearing houses around the world. But the experience was a lot tougher than they have hitherto liked to pretend.
While the system successfully handled Lehman, it might well have collapsed had one of the other vulnerable banks — Merrill Lynch for example — collapsed at the same time.
The resilience of clearing houses — or the lack of it — matters because governments and regulators want to expand their role.
To make the system safer regulators are pushing the idea that many of the hard-to-understand derivatives at present traded between banks rather than on recognised exchanges, should be processed through clearing houses as a first step to being able to keep a check on what is out there.
Such knowledge was conspicuously lacking when the subprime crisis first erupted, making it much harder for the authorities in the early days to know what they were dealing with and how to react. This expansion of their role will have a dramatic effect on the clearing houses, and indeed on the investment banks which originate the bulk of the OTC trades, very shortly.
A report published this week by Huw van Steenis of Morgan Stanley estimates that at least 85% of the volumes will move to central clearing within three years, which is a massive structural shift. But he makes the further point that the Americans are happier with this than the Europeans, and may well lead the charge.
There are good reasons for Europe's caution.
While the clearing system in the US operates to the satisfaction of its customers, there is considerable unhappiness with the equivalent bodies in Europe.
Here, many customers say these organisations are not fit for their present purpose in clearing equities, let alone ready to become a major bulwark of the wider financial system.
The no-longer new head of the London Stock Exchange Xavier Rolet has gone on record as saying that the post-trade costs of equity trading at his bourse are excessive.
Trading costs on the Stock Exchange have been slashed since the arrival of competitors such as Chi-X but the overall cost of doing a transaction has not fallen anything like enough because the post-trade costs, largely the province of the clearing houses, have come down very much less.
According to economic theory, the less it costs to trade the more trading there will be, so it matters hugely that London's costs are so high. If post-trade costs were cut to American levels turnover in London could easily double, which would have a huge impact on the Stock Exchange's income and would significantly enhance London's competitive position.
Worldwide, the securities industry spends £22 billion a year on post-trade services. Critics and customers say this should be reduced to between £5 billion and £7 billion and London Clearing House and Euroclear are going to come under serious pressure in the next few months to meet this customer demand.
But the problem is that there is nothing in the management history of European clearing houses to suggest that they can cut their costs by 75% in short order.
So we should be prepared for increased acrimony where, in the absence of price reductions, major equity customers threaten to move or make their own arrangements as indeed Liffe and the oil trader ICE Futures have already done.
Given these looming difficulties in the equity space it is understandable that European central banks are not rushing to give clearing houses even more responsibility.
They probably want reform first but even then they are unlikely to be satisfied because they are also acutely aware of the financial pressure these organisations could come under in the event of a crisis.
That means that to operate effectively they will need a major financial backer and, given the credibility problems of commercial banks, that backing will have to come from the central bank in whichever country the clearer is.
However, once that is the case then central banks will also want to supervise and regulate so they can understand the risks being taken.
All this is a considerable stretch from where we are now, which does indeed suggest that van Steenis has got it right.
If OTC derivatives are going to go through clearing houses it will be the United States which sets the pace in doing it.
