AIG, once a giant insurance and financial services conglomerate hit hard by the ongoing global credit crisis, is reportedly saying it will honor all of its financial obligations for ETF Securities' exchange-traded commodities.

And to prevent future problems like the ones that rattled ETF Securities' ETC lineup during AIG's financial crisis, the asset manager is believed to be exploring new collateral agreements for its portfolios, according to reports.

Third-party credit risk became an issue for ETF Securities in the market meltdown. Commodities portfolios where contracts were backed by AIG as counterparty opened the portfolios to credit risk of the insurer and forced the company to suspend ETC trading, on Sept. 16, when it looked as if AIG might go bankrupt (see story.)

However, with AIG bailed out by the U.S. government, ETF Securities has over the past two weeks restarted trading on all of its commodities portfolios on the London Stock Exchange.

The issue going forward for ETF Securities is to insulate itself from a repeat situation in which credit risk from a counterparty cripples its ability to trade its ETCs.

The company is reportedly in talks with market makers about the kind of collateral structure that would mitigate credit risk to portfolios, and this could include restructuring the existing ETCs.

Negotiations with AIG are said to be focused on an obligation for the ETF company to provide collateral to support 100% of the aggregate prices of all the commodity contracts provided by AIG.