Derivs - Regulation

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday discussed a new proposal that would not change the notional threshold at which financial institutions have to register as swap dealers.

The US Federal Reserve Board has put forward a sweeping set of proposals to soften restrictions on proprietary trading under the Volcker rule, in a move that could free up banks to pursue more transactions related to underwriting and market making.

The impasse between European and US regulators on the mutual recognition of each other’s clearing supervision regimes shows no sign of a breakthrough, as representatives from both authorities clashed at the Institute of International Finance spring membership meeting in Brussels this week.

Leading bookbuilding and data firm Ipreo, owned by Goldman Sachs and Blackstone, has been sold to data provider IHS Markit for $1.855bn, a move that could change the balance in the battle for the next generation of primary markets technology.

In a document recently circulated at EU level, Paris labelled the MiFID II equivalence regime “inappropriate”, and called for a tighter procedure — a clear move to limit UK funds’ access to EU markets after Brexit.

The Bank of England, the primary regulator of UK clearing houses, has decided to go ahead with a new rule that would compel CCPs to report issues with their servers and other technology systems.

The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) is lifting the bar on international banks to underwrite Chinese government bonds and their local branches to trade derivatives, one of a slew of measures released this weekend to set foreign banks in China free and increase competition in the onshore market.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association on Wednesday pushed for “enhanced supervisory cooperation” between clearing houses in the wake of Brexit.

ESMA chair Steven Maijoor spoke out against proposed clearing house legislation that would create a new body within the regulator, as part of remarks to the Goethe University’s institute for law and finance in Frankfurt on Monday.

Post-trade infrastructure giant the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), has warned derivatives markets that attempts to implement distributed ledger technology should be coordinated, lest mistakes of the past are repeated.

Prominent German member of the European Parliament, Markus Ferber, has put down suggestions that European regulators should be granted powers to temporarily exempt market participants from regulations.

Allen & Overy, IHS Markit and Smart Communications subsidiary SmartDX on Thursday announced that they had launched a platform to speed up the repapering of derivatives contracts, in anticipation of new regulatory requirements.