Derivs - Interest Rate

The Bank of England, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and a number of other industry trade bodies from across Europe have piled pressure on the European Union to deal with the risks of a disorderly Brexit for derivatives contracts.

Eurex exchange has been licensed to use SIX’s Saron index as the underlying for three month futures contracts on the Swiss franc Libor replacement rate.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has released a white paper on smart derivatives contracts, setting out a framework for how these could be built and function in scenarios such as defaults.

Steven Maijoor, the head of pan-European securities regulator ESMA, on Wednesday called for European firms' continued access to UK clearing houses (CCPs) after Brexit, to address potentially massive disruption to markets.

Paul Fulcher, who previously worked in asset-liability management (ALM) structuring and insurance solutions at Nomura, has joined Milliman.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Monday unveiled a much touted white paper on how the organisation's chairman, Christopher Giancarlo, would like to overhaul US oversight of foreign swaps markets.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group on Monday released clearing for OTC swaps based on the secured overnight financing rate (Sofr), the preferred benchmark to replace dollar Libor.

Pan-European securities watchdog ESMA on Friday announced that it would renew its restrictive measures for contracts for difference (CFD) products for another three months.

Five trade bodies began lobbying efforts on initial margin phase-in in earnest this week, warning global regulators of severe consequences if incoming rules are not amended.

The switch from Libor to other spread benchmarks has finally arrived in the loan markets, with at least one UK treasurer saying that they will no longer be issuing debt linked to the scandal hit pricing standard. Michael Turner reports.

Karel Lannoo, the chief executive of the Centre for European Policy Studies, indicated that he was optimistic about the prospects of an equivalency agreement on the oversight of clearing houses between the United Kingdom and EU 27 after Brexit.

JP Morgan has begun an agency clearing service for Australian and New Zealand dollar denominated over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives, becoming the first OTC clearing participant on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) to do so.