uncleared swap margin rules

Subscribe to uncleared swap margin rules

On June 25, the five prudential regulators responsible for the margin rules for bank swap dealers (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency) adopted one final rule and one interim final rule that modify their original framework for margining uncleared swaps.…
Continue Reading Prudential Regulators Revise Initial Margin Rules for Uncleared Swaps

On May 19, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Global Markets Advisory Committee approved a report that contains several recommendations for action by the CFTC with respect to the implementation of its initial margin (IM) rules for uncleared swaps. The recommendations are focused on the unique challenges faced by small end users of swaps and entities that engage in swap activity through separate managed accounts (SMAs).…
Continue Reading CFTC GMAC Recommendations Concerning Initial Margin for Swaps

On Friday, April 3, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) announced another delay in the implementation of the global implementation of mandatory initial margin for uncleared swaps. The initial margin compliance date for Phase 5 will now be September 1, 2021. The compliance date for Phase…

On March 17, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) adopted a final rule extending the compliance schedule for uncleared margin requirements to September 1, 2021 for market participants with the smallest uncleared swaps portfolios, i.e., Phase 5.…
Continue Reading CFTC Extends Relief for Initial Margin Requirements for Uncleared Swaps

On December 18, the Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO), the Division of Market Oversight (DMO) and the Division of Clearing and Risk (DCR) each issued a no-action letter providing relief to market participants in preparation for the transition away from the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and other interbank offered rates (collectively with LIBOR, IBORs). The letters identify the terms and conditions pursuant to which counterparties may be eligible for relief in connection with amending swaps to replace provisions referencing discontinued IBORs with alternative benchmarks.…
Continue Reading CFTC Grants Market Participants LIBOR-Transition Relief

On October 16, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) unanimously extended the compliance schedule for initial margin requirements for uncleared swaps for entities with average aggregate notional amounts in material swaps exposure of $8 – $50 billion until September 1, 2021. Entities with more than $50 billion of such exposure are still subject to the…

On September 17, the directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) approved a joint notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR) with respect to the prudential regulator margin rules for non-cleared swaps. The joint form of the NPR indicates that the other prudential swap regulators (the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency) will all be approving the same NPR in the near future.…
Continue Reading FDIC Proposes Amendments to Prudential Regulator Swap Margin Rules

On July 23, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a revised framework for mandatory initial margin applicable to swaps that are not cleared with a central clearing party. The key revision was the insertion of an additional year into the implementation schedule for the margin rules.…
Continue Reading Delay of Final Implementation of Swap Initial Margin Rules

On April 29, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Chris Giancarlo sent a letter to Randy Quarles, the Vice Chair for Supervision of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, in which he proposed that the US regulators responsible for the administering the margin rules for uncleared swaps should collaborate in providing some relief to non-dealer swap market participants who may become subject to initial margin requirements in 2020. The specific relief would be the issuance of the same guidance issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) in March (for more information, see the March 8, 2019 edition of Corporate & Financial Weekly Digest), which stated that in-scope parties do not have to put in place compliant documentation and custodial relationships if there is no expectation that the exposure associated with their swaps will actually exceed the regulatory threshold for posting initial margin ($50 million for the United States).…
Continue Reading CFTC Chair Proposes Relief for Phase 5 Initial Margin Implementation

On March 28, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that it has unanimously approved two final rule amendments designed to ease registrants’ regulatory burdens. Both final rule proposals originated from the CFTC’s Project KISS Initiative, which is intended to simplify and reduce burdens by revisiting our rules based on staff implementation experience and public comment. The two rule amendments will become effective 30 days after publication in the Federal Register and are detailed below:…
Continue Reading CFTC Unanimously Approves Rule Amendments to Ease Regulatory Burdens