The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has published the first in a series of documents to help market participants comply with new margining requirements for non-cleared derivatives, officials say. The 2016 Credit Support Annex for Variation Margin (VM) is described as an update of the 1994 ISDA Credit Support Annex (CSA) that will allow… Read More >>
GAO Wants to Break Down Regulatory Silos
The budget watchdog for the federal government, the General Accounting Office (GAO) wants the Congress and the President to clarify the morass of federal regulators overseeing U.S. financial markets, particularly the interactions between the Federal Reserve and the Office of Financial Research (OFR). A report on regulators was part of a larger GAO report on… Read More >>
ESMA Fines DTCC for Trade Repository Shortcomings
Post-trade infrastructure services provider DTCC has been fined nearly $73,000 by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) for alleged failures to properly offer “direct and immediate access to derivatives trading data” for nine months in 2014. The regulator’s fine of €64,000 (equivalent to 72,907.15 given a 1 EUR = 1.13917 USD rate) is the… Read More >>
FIX Group Backs ISO OTC Identifier Effort
The FIX Trading Community is throwing its support behind a standards-creation effort that would assign identifiers to over-the-counter (OTC) derivative instruments as mandated by the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive/Regulation (MiFID II) requirements. The non-profit body behind the FIX electronic trading protocol is sponsoring a study group of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that… Read More >>
ISDA to CFTC: Exempt SEF-Compliant European Venues
In publishing a set of principles intended to help derivatives trading firms compare U.S. and European Union (E.U.) trading venues, officials at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) are asking that CFTC officials consider a new exemption for established trading venues in Europe. “If EU trading venues are determined to achieve the same objectives… Read More >>
Why Regulators Are to Blame for the MiFID II Delay
While U.S. and European authorities are finally making progress in harmonizing key rules and regulations, it’s becoming painfully clear that the lack of an initial, collaborative response among regulators to the global recession is hitting home for all securities firms. A case in point is the recently announced (and expected) new deadline for the Markets… Read More >>
Massad Makes Pitch for New Swaps Data Gathering System
The CFTC is forging ahead with a second major attempt to make swap data reporting “accurate, consistent and timely” as CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad recently stressed in a speech before the 2016 Office of Financial Research (OFR) and Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) annual conference presented by the U.S. Treasury Department. “We have come a… Read More >>
Beware the Next Avalanche, Warns CFTC’s Sharon Bowen
New regulations may require that “all swaps transactions, whether cleared or uncleared” be reported to a trade repository, but more needs to be done, according to U.S. CFTC Commissioner Sharon Y. Bowen In a recent speech at George Washington University Law School, she called for closing loopholes and ending risky practices, as well for as… Read More >>
Obama Wants to Boost Funding for SEC, CFTC
For the last budget of his presidency, Barack Obama will be calling for increased funding of the two main watchdogs of the securities industry — the SEC and CFTC — as a way of maintaining his administration’s Wall Street reforms after he leaves office. The forthcoming budgetary request came to light via a blog posting… Read More >>
Barclays to Transfer Legacy Derivatives to JPMorgan
Barclays Bank (Barclays) has signed an agreement with JPMorgan to divest its legacy derivatives portfolio as part of its non-core rundown strategy — a possible sign that other banks may start to move assets around in order to adjust to the increasingly burdensome regulatory demands for capital requirements. Barclays officials say that “acting through Barclays… Read More >>
