Derivs - Regulation

The Securities and Exchange Commission appointed two senior staffers to its Division of Trading and Markets earlier this month.

Daiwa Securities Group is closing its proprietary-trading desks in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Federal agencies have missed 77% of the deadlines to implement regulations under the Dodd-Frank Act.

Edmond Lau, executive director, money management at the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, said the establishment of regional central clearing counterparites in Asia will allow local dealers and end users to gain access to the larger global CCPs in the U.S. and Europe once international linkages are established.

Central clearing houses in Asia will scramble against each other to secure cash from near defaulting counterparites if fragmentation and extra-territoriality issues are not settled among the region's regulators, according to Stephen O'Connor, chairman at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

The competiveness of the Belgian structured product market and competition amongst structured product distributors may be impacted by proposals set out in a consultation paper from the country’s Financial Services and Markets Authority for a regulatory framework for the distribution of structured products to retail investors.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association says the International Accounting Standards Board should delay implementation of accounting standards until the beginning of 2015.

It is vital that risk managers in vertical integrated central counterparty models have an independent and clear reporting line to the board to ensure financial stability, according to Paul Tucker, deputy governor for financial stability, member of the Monetary Policy Committee and member of the Financial Policy Committee at the Bank of England.

The Futures Industry Association has questioned Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to impose risk management requirements on clearing members, arguing they are too restrictive and too vague.

Sovereign entities will find it harder to fund themselves at low rates following the agreement to ban so-called naked credit default swap trading on sovereign debt, according to market officials.

The focus of the U.K. Structured Product Association will be to educate intermediaries and investors leading up to the implementation of the U.K. Retail Distribution Review, Jamie Smith, the newly elected chairman of the U.K. SPA and head of distribution at Lloyds Banking Group, told Derivatives Intelligence.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority and the Securities and Futures Commission are planning to broaden licensing requirements for dealers, advisors and clearing agents operating in the over-the-counter derivatives market in Hong Kong.