The exchange's own name for futures margin: a deposit guaranteeing you can meet your obligations, not borrowed money.
Stock margin is a loan and you pay interest on it. Futures margin is a bond you post and, in many accounts, still earn interest on. Nothing is lent, because you have not bought anything yet — you have entered a contract.
Understanding this changes how you read leverage. The 5% deposit does not mean you borrowed 95%; it means you control the full notional-value while having posted only collateral against the daily variation-margin you might owe.
Example: one cl contract at $80 is $80,000 of exposure held with roughly $6,000 posted. You owe nothing and pay no interest, but a $6 move against you consumes the entire bond.
Original diagrams for the ideas on this page. Illustrative, not real market data.
Margin and leverage. A $5,000 deposit can control a $100,000 position, which is 20:1 leverage. Because the loss is measured on the full $100,000, a 2.5% move against you halves the deposit and brings a margin call, and a 5% move uses all of it.
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