Industry associations

How are investment managers improving collateral management processes three years after the Lehman Brothers default and one year after ISDA published its best practices ‘guide’ for the market? DerivSource’s Julia Schieffer talks to industry participants about their view on true market practice and concerns on managing margin within a central clearing environment.

CME Group and National Futures Association (NFA) today announced, in conjunction with the InterContinental Exchange (ICE), the Kansas City Board of Trade (KCBOT) and the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX), the formation of a joint committee to review how self-regulatory organizations can strengthen current safeguards for customer segregated funds held at the firm level in light of the MF Global bankruptcy.

The Futures and Options Association is enhancing its regulatory resources with the appointment of Blake Stephenson as Manager, Regulation, with effect from 28 November. Blake joins the FOA from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) where he was part of the exchange supervision team. He is also a qualified solicitor.

The Association of Corporate Treasurers (ACT), in a joint letter to Michel Barnier, Commissioner responsible for Internal Market and Services at the European Commission, has highlighted the danger that proposed financial markets legislation fails to constrain the trend towards concentration across the derivative trading and clearing landscape in Europe. The signatories to the letter urge the Commission to introduce explicit and detailed open access requirements within the proposed European Markets and Infrastructure Regulation.

The FIA Principal Traders Group and the FIA European Principal Traders Association today released their joint response to a consultation report issued by the International Organization of Securities Commissions seeking public input on the impact of technological changes on market integrity and efficiency.

A coalition of financial services firms and trade associations (the “Trade Associations” [i]), in coordination with the Global Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA/AFME/SIFMA, collectively known as GFMA), has presented to regulators a recommendation for the organizations that it believes are best suited to operate a global legal entity identifier (LEI) system to aid regulators and industry in monitoring systemic risk. The recommendation document can be found here: www.sifma.org/LEI-Recommendation-Process/.

Eight global and regional trade associations today called on regulators to intensify cooperation to prevent, alleviate or limit the harmful effect of overlap, inconsistency and ambiguity resulting from extra-territoriality in regulatory efforts to implement G20 commitments.    

Extra-territoriality is a fundamental concern in derivatives business, where it is common for counterparties based in different parts of the world to transact with each other. 

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