By Christopher Whittall
Published April 24, 2013 International Financing Review Asia
Derivatives professionals continued to rail against rules dictating the amount of margin firms will have to set aside against uncleared over-the-counter derivatives at the ISDA AGM in Singapore today, labelling the proposed measures an “overkill”.
Under rules drafted by the Working Group on Margining Requirements – a taskforce led by the Basel Committee and the International Organisation of Securities Commissions – the margin held against swaps that are ineligible for central clearing would create a market-wide collateral drain of around US$1trn.
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By Helen Bartholomew
Published April 24, 2013 International Financing Review Asia
The European Commission’s planned Financial Transaction Tax stands to kill the over-the-counter derivatives market in the region and could have far-reaching consequences across the rest of the financial markets, according to TJ Lim, global head of markets at UniCredit.
“I don’t think politicians really understand what they’re getting into,” said Lim, speaking at a panel discussion at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association AGM in Singapore earlier today.
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By Alex Davis
Published April 24, 2013 Asia Risk
Risk has teamed up with the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to launch a new over-the-counter derivatives research award. The initiative was unveiled at Isda's annual general meeting in Singapore this morning.
The award is designed to increase understanding of the OTC derivatives market among international financial market participants, including financial institutions, regulatory bodies, academic institutions and the media.
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By Helen Bartholomew
Published April 23, 2013 International Financing Review Asia
The use of over-the-counter derivatives by investors and corporates is set to increase in Asia as the array of products available for risk management and hedging expands in the region, while regulators introduce a series of measures intended to bring greater transparency to a market that was previously considered to be opaque.
According to a report published by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and conducted by Celent, a division of research company Oliver Wyman, 57% of Asian end-users expect to increase their use of OTC derivatives over the next two years, while a further 36% said their planned activity in the market would remain unchanged.
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By Aaron Woolner
Published April 24, 2013 Asia Risk
The emergence of 18 trade repositories around the globe – with the potential for more to be built – will hamper the efforts of regulators to gain a clear view of derivatives market activity, warned panellists at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association annual general meeting in Singapore this morning.
The proliferation of repositories means there will be a fragmentation of data – and regulators will have trouble spotting the potential build-up of systemic risk as a result, panellists said.
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By Mary Childs
Published April 23, 2013 Bloomberg
Users of over-the-counter derivatives may now use an interest-rate swap contract with preset terms as the industry lobby group seeks to standardize the $379 trillion market.
The contract, which the International Swaps and Derivatives Association developed with the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has pre-agreed terms including on coupons and payment dates, according to a press release distributed today at ISDA’s annual general meeting in Singapore. It will initially be available in six currencies and at nine maturity points from one to 30 years.
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By Nick Sawyer
Published April 23, 2013 Risk
Nearly half the over-the-counter derivatives participants in Asia-Pacific expect to clear through local clearing houses, according to a new survey from Celent - creating the prospect of liquidity fragmentation, the splitting of netting sets and higher costs.
Forty-six per cent of respondents to the survey said they would likely clear through local central counterparties (CCPs), compared with 38% who said they expect to use global clearing houses. Just 8% said they would use both. The Celent survey was commissioned by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to coincide with its annual general meeting in Singapore this week.
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By Mary Childs
Published April 10, 2013 Bloomberg
Standard & Poor’s is starting three indexes that measure corporate creditworthiness tied to the S&P 500 stock index and is linking with swaps exchange trueEX Group LLC to create futures contracts on them.
One of S&P Dow Jones Indices’s gauges, which begin today, will be tied to 120 issuers of the most liquid investment-grade debt in the stock index. The S&P/ISDA U.S. Corporate 120 Credit Spread Index, combined with the S&P/ISDA U.S. Financial 30 Credit Spread Index, make a third basket, the S&P/ISDA U.S. 150 Credit Spread Index.
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By Matthew Leising
Published April 9, 2013 Bloomberg
The International Swaps & Derivatives Association said it hired consulting firm Oliver Wyman to make recommendations on how to modify an interest-rate swap pricing process that is the subject of a U.S. investigation.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has subpoenaed ICAP Plc (IAP) and as many as 15 dealers related to potential manipulation of benchmark rate-swap measures, including the so- called ISDAfix rates, according to people familiar with the investigation. The rates were created in 1998 by ISDA with the predecessors of Thomson Reuters Corp. and ICAP.
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By Richard Henderson
Published April 5, 2013 The Trade
A new industry-led reporting and communication standard for OTC derivatives will give buy-side firms greater scope to automate regulatory-mandated reporting, including splitting margin payments to central counterparties (CCPs).
The clearing connectivity standard (CCS) has been developed by consultancy Sapient Global Markets and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA), a trade body, to standardise reporting of payments to CCPs for swaps ahead of a series of US regulatory deadlines throughout the year.
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