ISDA Papers on DLT and Smart Contracts
ISDA has published a number of papers exploring issues of legal and regulatory uncertainty as market participants seek to apply new technologies, such as smart contracts and DLT, to derivatives trading. This page contains links to each of these papers.
This page will be updated as new papers and materials are published.
Contents:
1. Legal Guidelines for Smart Derivatives Contracts
2. Whitepapers & Academic Papers
3. Letters & Consultation Responses
If you have any questions or feedback on any of these papers, please contact ISDALegal@ISDA.org
(most recent update: 22nd April, 2021)
A series of legal guidelines for smart derivatives contracts, intended to explain the core principles of ISDA documentation and to raise awareness of important legal terms that should be maintained when a technology solution is applied to derivatives trading.
| Published | Subject | Link |
| January 2019 | Introduction | Link |
| February 2019 | ISDA Master Agreement | Link |
| September 2019 | Collateral Documentation | Link |
| February 2020 | Interest Rate Derivatives | Link |
| February 2020 | Equity Derivatives | Link |
| November 2020 | Credit Derivatives | Link |
| November 2020 | Foreign Exchange (FX) | Link |
| Published | Title | Overview |
| 2017 | Smart Contracts and Distributed Ledger – A Legal Perspective | Co-authored with Linklaters, this whitepaper sets out what smart contracts and DLT are, how they might be used in a derivatives context and what the relevant legal considerations. |
| 2018 | Smart Derivatives Contracts – From Concept to Construction | Co-authored with King & Wood Mallesons, this whitepaper proposes a practical framework for constructing smart derivatives contracts. |
| 2019 | Smart Derivatives Contracts: The ISDA Master Agreement and the Automation of Payments and Deliveries | An academic paper exploring which provides a framework for understanding how derivatives contracts are structured at different levels, in terms of both the legal documentation and the work-flow and discusses how smart contract code might processes and automate payments-related and deliveries-related events. |
| 2020 | Private International Law Aspects of Smart Derivatives Contracts utilizing Distributed Ledger Technology | Co-authored with Clifford Chance, R3 and Singapore Academy of Law, this whitepaper discusses the private international law, or conflict-of-law, aspects of derivatives contracts governed by the laws of Singapore and England and Wales involving distributed ledger technology.
Subsequent papers covering French, Japanese, Irish and New York law be be found here. |
| Date | Event | Overview |
| 29 July, 2020 | Joint Association Letter on a Digital Future for Financial Markets | A letter from ISDA and several other trade associations to the Financial Stability Board, the International Organization of Securities Commissions and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision asserting our joint commitment to defining and promoting the development of a digital future for financial markets.
Access the letter here. |
| 19 March, 2021 | ISDA Response to HMT Cryptoasset and Stablecoin Consultation | ISDA’s response to HM Treasury’s consultation and call for evidence on the UK’s regulatory approach to cryptoassets and stablecoins. ISDA’s response highlights opportunities for the deployment of new technology such as distributed ledger technology (DLT) and smart contracts in the derivatives market.
Access the response here. |
Latest
The CPI Quandary
The recent US government shutdown didn’t just create weeks of political drama – it also left inflation-linked swaps dealers with a major headache: how should they determine an initial value for new trades given the US Bureau of Labor Statistics...
ISDA Response to HMT, BoE on UK CCPs
On November 18, ISDA submitted its responses to the Bank of England (BoE) consultation on ensuring the resilience of central counterparties (CCPs) and the UK Treasury’s (HMT) two draft CCP statutory instruments (SIs). These consultations form part of the update...
Doubling Down on Appropriate Trading Book Capital
Throughout ISDA’s 40th anniversary year, we’ve been reflecting on the quest for greater consistency and efficiency that underpins everything we’ve achieved since 1985. It was at the heart of the original efforts to bring greater standardization to the nascent derivatives...
Determining Initial Reference Index for New Trades
On November 25, 2025, ISDA published a Market Practice Note (MPN) to recommend a specific methodology that market participants could elect to use for the purposes of determining the Initial Reference Index for certain new inflation derivative transactions given that...