Derivs - Regulation

Christopher Giancarlo, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will visit European regulators in London, Brussels, Frankfurt and Madrid next week in an attempt to defuse European efforts to alter unilaterally the supervision regime for foreign clearing houses.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions on Tuesday urged its members to “improve the practices” of firms offering complex derivatives to retail clients as it opened a consultation on the matter to the public.

Electronic platform provider NEX has found a compromise between MiFID II, the new set of European regulations which require transparency of trading, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an upcoming European regulation which requires corporations to protect individual private data.

After months of sensational growth, bitcoin has, at last, faltered. An increasingly hostile regulatory environment has caused its price, which nudged $20,000 in December, to collapse to around $9,000.

The chief strategy officer of Eurex Clearing, Matthias Graulich, has dismissed claims that euro interest rate swap clearing costs would increase substantially if moved to the EU 27 from London, noting that liquidity indicators for the product are already improving at Eurex.

A report published by the UK House of Lords on Saturday encouraged the government to “resist” new European Commission measures to relocate systemically important clearing houses in London to EU member states.

Two influential derivatives trade bodies have questioned elements of a European Commission proposal that would centralise supervisory powers with pan-European securities watchdog ESMA, arguing that national supervisors have a “strong knowledge of local markets” and that the move seemed “premature”.

The European Securities and Markets Authority on Thursday kept up the pressure on providers of complex retail derivatives products by announcing a short consultation on crack-down measures, including a potential ban on cryptocurrency contracts for difference.

From February, the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) might be able to ban or impose fines on anyone doing business in unregulated markets if they break codes of best practice — codes that might have been written almost anywhere or by anyone.

Two US senators have scolded the European Commission's efforts to unilaterally change agreed rules for the oversight of foreign clearing houses in the wake of Brexit, backing the toughening position of Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo.

Chief executive of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) Scott O’Malia on Monday said that the trade body was preparing French and Irish law governed ISDA master agreements to be “ready for all eventualities” in the wake of Brexit.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) on Monday issued a consultation on draft guidelines that would oblige central counterparties (CCPs) to disclose “parameters and information” on the way they calculate margin requirements for trades.