LONDON (Reuters) - The London Metal Exchange has selected Citigroup (>> Citigroup Inc.), Bank of America Merrill Lynch (>> Bank of America Corp) and JP Morgan (>> JPMorgan Chase & Co.) to help make their new self-clearing platform compliant with financial market reforms.

LME Clear, which is expected to go live in 2014, will use BofA-Merrill to secure margins from counterparties to a financial transaction, making it compliant with the new European Market Infrastructures Regulation (EMIR).

"In securing these three key partners, LME Clear is taking a significant step towards delivering a fully EMIR-compliant clearing platform," said Trevor Spanner, managing director of post trade services at the LME.

EMIR mandates that the OTC or off-exchange financial derivatives market, worth an estimated $648 trillion globally, must be cleared by a central counterparty and reported to a trade repository.

The LME added Citi will facilitate the LME Clear Secure Payments System, by processing receipts from members' settlement banks, while JP Morgan will manage gold submitted as collateral to offset positions in LME Clear.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel; editing by Stephen Nisbet)

Stocks treated in this article : Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co.