U.S. and European Union regulators reached an agreement on oversight the $553 trillion global derivatives market, seeking to prevent capital increases from hitting EU banks this year and enabling CME Group Inc. to continue settling some of the world's most common contracts.

The European Commission, in an attempt to end more than two years of regulatory debate that threatened to fracture the market, said in a statement on Wednesday that it would adopt a so-called equivalence decision "shortly," acknowledging that U.S. supervision of clearinghouses such as CME Group's is equivalent to its own. Without the key finding, traders would have faced higher EU capital requirements if they wanted to guarantee swaps, futures and other derivatives in the U.S.

"Our agreement is critical to ensuring that our global derivatives markets remain robust, while keeping our financial system as stable and resilient as possible," U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Timothy Massad said. "It is a significant milestone in harmonizing regulation of these markets."