With less than a month to go till the closing date for SEF registration (2nd October), we have another two platforms, both Inter-Dealer Brokers (IDBs) Tullet-Prebon and ICAP submitting their SEF applications.
This brings the total to date to 11 platforms which are:
Bloomberg (temporary approval 30 Jul 13)
GFI
MarketAxess
Tradeweb (temporary approval 6 Sept 13)
TeraExchange
SwapEx
Integral
Ice Swap Trade
Tullet-Prebon
ICAP
BGC (applied on 4th Sept)
The CFTC site has a section showing status of SEF filing applications. We are still waiting for a some notable platforms including Thomson Reuters to submit their applications.
In term of FX, Europe has now fallen inline with the US, to exempt FX Forwards and Swaps from initial margin requirements, as outlined in the BIS/IOSCO report into Margin requirements for non-centrally cleared derivatives, which makes sense.
With regards to how Dodd-Frank will affect the FX markets, I have just gone through a good presentation that was made to the US Fed back in April (so before some finalised rules such as MAT), but worth a look here.
Also, DerivAlert has a good summary of what’s next in terms of SEF timelines summary below:
- June – October 2013: SEF applications may be filed any time between June and October 2013.
- August 5, 2013: SEFs may begin to designate products as ‘made available to trade’ to the CFTC, which has 100-day review period
- September 9, 2013: Mandatory clearing for Category 3 swap transactions, including those involving third-party subaccounts and those not excepted from the mandatory clearing requirement.
- October 2, 2013: Compliance deadline for SEFs
- November/December 2013: Expected mandatory trading on SEFs/designated contract markets
- October 2, 2014: Minimum request for quote (RFQ) requirement increases to 3
Finally, an interesting post from Betting the Business on The Value of Clearing Derivatives which looks at the risk reduction achieved through central clearing (setting aside the debate about concentration risk of CCPs). According to an earlier BIS report, moving $1 of derivatives from a bilateral system onto central clearing can reduce the exposure in the system associated with that derivative by approximately 75% again well worth reading the post.
