Japan

Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc. (Location: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Atsushi Saito; hereinafter, "TSE") and NYSE Euronext (Location: New York, NY, CEO: Duncan Niederauer) have signed a "Master Agreement" regarding a mutual connection between TSE's arrownetTM and NYSE Euronext's Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI®). The Master Agreement comes as a result of the collaboration initiated by an LOI signed by both parties on March 1st, 2011 (US time).

LCH.Clearnet Ltd’s (LCH.Clearnet) market-leading interest rate swap (IRS) clearing service SwapClear is to begin using the overnight index swap (OIS) curve to discount Japanese Yen IRS trades from October 2011. The total outstanding notional value of IRS denominated in JPY within SwapClear is currently ¥ 1417 trillion, comprising over 12% of the total SwapClear portfolio by value. 

OSE to Launch Futures Based on Dow Jones Industrial Average; CME Group to Launch E-micro futures on the Nikkei 225 Average

CME Group, the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, and Osaka Securities Exchange Co., Ltd. (OSE), the premier Japanese derivatives and securities exchange, today announced the companies have expanded their partnership with a strategic arrangement to cooperate on joint product development, marketing and promotions.  

Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Mary Schapiro and Japan Financial Services Agency (JFSA) Commissioner Katsunori Mikuniya met in Washington, D.C., this week as part of the annual SEC-JFSA Bilateral High-level Dialogue. The purpose of the Dialogue, established in 2006, is to provide a forum whereby the senior officials of the two agencies can meet to identify and discuss issues of common concern affecting the U.S. and Japanese capital markets and promote areas of future collaboration.

New website symbolizes the increasing global demand for Numerix’s products and services across Japan and Asia

Numerix, the leading provider of cross-asset analytics for derivatives valuations and risk management, today announced the launch and activation of its new corporate website for the Japanese market place. The launch symbolizes the increasing global demand for the firm’s products and services across the Japanese and Asian market places and represents the company’s strategic commitment to the region.

Reuters Reports that Japan's Parliament has passed a bill enforcing new rules on OTC derivatives including the requirement for some OTC derivatives to be cleared via agencies.

See Reuters for full story.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) today announced that its Japan Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee resolved that a Restructuring Credit Event occurred in respect of AIFUL Corporation, a Japan-based financial service provider. The Committee also voted to hold an auction for AIFUL.

ISDA will facilitate the process by publishing the auction terms on its website www.isda.org/credit, in due course. The auction will be administered by Markit and Creditex.

NYSE Liffe, the European-based derivatives business of NYSE Euronext (NYX), is now the most popular foreign exchange in Japan for trading short-term interest rate (STIR) derivatives, NYSE Liffe revealed today, citing new data for the financial year just ended, which has been published by the Financial Futures Association of Japan.

Both the Japan Securities Clearing Corp and Tokyo Financial Exchange are gearing up to launch central clearing for interest-rate and credit default swaps next year. The market utilities have been ironing out the details of the infrastructure build, investment and other details in recent months while also conducting studies. The announcement raises questions among industry participants globally.

In the current financial crisis, problems relating to OTC derivatives transactions have been highlighted and the need to strengthen regulations has been discussed worldwide. In order to facilitate a stable transaction framework with reduced systemic risk, Central Counterparties (CCP) for OTC derivatives transactions have been established in both Europe and the U.S.A.