For
Immediate Release Tuesday, September 13, 2005
For More Information, Please Contact:
ISDA Launches Protocol to Ease Transfer
of Derivatives Trades;
Advances Association’s Efforts to Increase
Operational Efficiency
NEW YORK, Tuesday, September
13, 2005 – The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA)
today announced that the world’s major derivatives dealers have signed up to
its Novation Protocol, a solution which facilitates the transfer of an existing
trade to a third party. The new protocol addresses directly the potential for
backlogs and uncertainty associated with the transfer of a party’s position in a
privately negotiated derivatives transaction. In line with the increasing
adoption of technological solutions to expedite and enhance the confirmation
process, the protocol streamlines the process of transferring trades to
same-day execution.
“ISDA’s new protocol is one
of the many efforts by which the Association is evidencing its commitment to
increasing operational efficiency and legal certainty,” said
Under the existing terms of
the ISDA Master Agreement, the prior written consent of the remaining party is
required when its counterparty in a trade wishes to ‘novate’ or ‘assign’ (i.e.:
transfer) its position in a trade to a third party. The protocol enables the
parties to modify this requirement to a simpler and more streamlined exchange
of electronic communications among the parties involved. In its first
iteration, the protocol will apply to credit and interest rate derivatives,
with a view to extending to other derivatives product areas in future
iterations.
"This protocol addresses
directly an area on which regulators and policy makers have focused their
attention," said
“The world’s leading dealer
firms adhering to the protocol at the outset demonstrates how critical this
solution is for the industry,” noted
“The benefits of a widely
accepted and workable protocol will be significant in addressing legal and
operational issues in interest rate and credit derivatives and in helping these
important sectors continue to develop,” added Mark Davies, ISDA Board Member
and Head of Global Credit Derivatives Trading at Bear Stearns.
The move is the latest step
taken by ISDA and its membership to help reduce the potential for confirmation
backlogs in privately negotiated derivatives. The Association has published a
series of documents outlining timetables for tighter end-to-end processing and
increased automation of bilaterally negotiated derivatives processing. This
year, a series of high level meetings, sponsored by ISDA, have brought together
business, legal and operational staff from buy and sell-side institutions of
all sizes to address these issues, focusing on the increasing range of
automated solutions, many of which are based on Financial products Mark-up
Language (FpML), the industry data communications standard sponsored by ISDA.
Launched on Monday, the
protocol will be open for adherence until the end of October and will become
effective on October 24. A list of adherents is available at www.isda.org.
ISDA is the global trade association representing leading participants in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. ISDA was chartered in 1985, and today has more than 650 member institutions from 47 countries on six continents. These members include most of the world's major institutions that deal in privately negotiated derivatives, as well as many of the businesses, governmental entities and other end users that rely on over-the-counter derivatives to manage efficiently the financial market risks inherent in their core economic activities. Information about ISDA and its activities is available on the Association's web site: www.isda.org.
About FpML
FpML is the business information exchange standard for
electronic dealing and processing of financial derivatives instruments. It
establishes the industry protocol for sharing information on, and dealing in,
financial swaps, derivatives and structured products over the Internet. It is
based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), the standard meta-language for
describing data shared between applications. FpML will eventually cover all
categories of privately negotiated derivatives. Information about the FpML
standard, the specifications and the different working groups can be found on
the FpML web site: www.fpml.org.