Derivs - People and Markets

The UK’s Royal Mint has partnered with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group to create a blockchain-based digital platform for trading gold, in an attempt to cut costs for investors and improve perceptions of the asset class.

Eurex, the derivatives exchange of Deutsche Börse, has launched a daily future linked to the Kospi-200 index, which will be fully fungible with contracts traded on the Korea Exchange (KRX).

The European Commission has proposed rules aimed at minimising the systemic risk of recovering and resolving central counterparties that fail, including granting authorities powers to intervene, having projected that 70% of the $500tr over-the-counter derivatives market will move to being cleared.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association and IHS Markit have unveiled the ISDA 2016 Variation Margin Protocol, which automates amending collateral documents or setting up agreements to comply with variation margin requirements from March 1.

Mercado Español de Futuros Financieros, the Spanish futures exchange, is to start trading derivatives on wind energy.

Oslo Bors is to change the last trading day of its equity derivative contracts to the third Friday of the month, as the exchange looks to line up with other markets.

The European Commission is set to unveil a draft regulation next week aimed at ensuring that central counterparties which fail are resolved in an orderly manner.

A new swathe of asset managers will be caught by rules on how they use benchmarks, after the European Securities and Markets Authority broadened its planned clampdown.

Rising jitters around the approaching Italian referendum and ECB meeting in early December are keeping European credit spreads elevated, say traders, but many see the potential for a big rally given the extent of underperformance versus the US in November.

The European Commission this week announced a banking reform package that will result in changes to the CRR and CRD IV capital requirement legislation, as well as changes to the BRRD and SRMR legislation relating to recovery and resolution of failing financial institutions. The package is very broad, so we won’t attempt to comment on all of the measures.

Capitalab, part of BGC Partners, has extended the compression service it operates to FX options as well as interest rate caps and floors.

Derivatives exchanges are making a push on natural gas with three new initiatives unveiled, amid expectations that demand to trade such products across global markets is set to grow.