The UK and Europe are currently consulting on both the Derivatives Clearing and Trading Obligations. Clarus are worried that the UK consultations risks a significant loss of transparency to markets. Particularly for USD. There appears to have been silence out of the CFTC on these important subjects. Europe has proposed covering some RFRs in the […]

Q4 2020 saw $7.0bn DV01 of new USD-LIBOR* linked activity written in OTC derivatives markets. It is a similar story in GBP ($4.5bn DV01), JPY and CHF markets. Why is so much new risk being written against these indices when they are due to cease imminently? Responses to the IBA consultation on a possible cessation […]

Amended 7th October 2020 to correct the changes to block and cap thresholds to 67% and 75% respectively. The block threshold for Swaps, and all other OTC derivatives, is changing. The thresholds for trades qualifying for block status and the reporting cap for notional amounts are also diverging. This will substantially increase transparency in the […]

Our analysis shows that more blocks transacted than ever before in March 2020. More volume traded as a block on-SEF in March. There is no difference in Price Dispersion between block and non-block trades during both normal and stressed market conditions. The current 15 minute delay in reporting for block trades has no negative impact […]

Following on from his Cross Border Swaps Regulation 2.0 whitepaper from last October, CFTC Chairman Giancarlo gave some updates in his speech at the recent FIA IDX in London .   He is leaving the SEF cross-border proposals to be turned into proposed rules and voted on by his successor as Chairman – Heath Tarbert.   On […]

We summarise the recent CCP12 report “Incentives for Central Clearing”. This report looks at the current state of play in Cleared FX, Interest Rates and Credit. It analyses particular niches in clearing, including Latam Rates and NDFs. It concludes that clearing has increased for Linear products, but Option markets remain uncleared. Further studies on legacy […]

KCCP defines the amount of capital that must be held versus default fund contributions at a CCP. The lower the value of KCCP, the lower the overall cost of clearing. CPMI-IOSCO public disclosures show that KCCP has decreased at all of the major CCPs in the past three years. We look at the data and […]

It is a year since we last looked at the Capital and RWA of European banks, so today I will look at what the past year’s data shows. Background One of the lessons learned from the Great Financial Crisis was that Banks were under capitalised commensurate to their risk exposure; leading to new Basel III […]

Last year we wrote about Capital Ratios and Risk Weighted Assets for Tier 1 US Banks and that blog remains popular to this day. Today I will provide an update using the latest quarterly figures, to see if the trend we observed with US Banks increasing capital and reducing RWA has continued into 2018. Background The Basel […]

Settle to Market is a recent innovation in derivatives trading. It has helped banks reduce regulatory capital and derivatives exposures. We look at STM in detail and compare it to collateralisation. The CFTC have also issued guidance on the subject. What You Need To Know Settle to Market (STM) treats Variation Margin at CCPs as […]