ISDA has published its latest margin survey, which shows a steep increase in the amount of initial margin (IM) collected by the largest market participants for their non-cleared derivatives trades.
According to the survey, the 20 largest dealers – those that had to comply with phase one of the regulatory IM requirements from September 2016 – collected $286.0 billion of IM on their non-cleared derivatives at the end of 2021, up 38% from the $207.3 billion collected at the end of 2020. Of the total IM received, $203.5 billion was required under global margin regulations, a 57.5% increase versus 2020. A further $82.5 billion was collected from counterparties and/or for transactions not currently in scope of the margin rules, including legacy transactions.
Phase-one firms also collected $936.5 billion in variation margin (VM) at the end of 2021, a 19.6% decrease from the $1.2 trillion collected at year-end 2020. This includes $527.9 billion of VM as part of regulatory margin requirements and $408.7 billion collected on a discretionary basis. The survey attributes the decline in VM to lower volatility in 2021 versus 2020, when the coronavirus crisis resulted in large asset price movements.
The ISDA margin survey also analyzes IM posted by all market participants to major central counterparties (CCPs) for cleared interest rate derivatives and credit default swap (CDS) transactions. Total IM was $323.4 billion at the end of 2021, a drop of 2.2% from $330.6 billion posted a year earlier. Of that amount, $262.4 billion of IM was delivered to CCPs for cleared interest rate derivatives and $61.1 billion of IM was posted for cleared CDS.
Thirty-two institutions contributed to this year’s margin survey, including all 20 phase-one entities, five of the six phase-two firms, and seven of the eight phase-three entities. ISDA also used publicly available margin data on cleared derivatives from two US CCPs, four European CCPs and two Asian CCPs.
Read the survey here.
For Press Queries, Please Contact:
Nick Sawyer, ISDA London, +44 20 3808 9740, nsawyer@isda.org
Lauren Springer, ISDA New York, +1 212 901 6019, ldobbs@isda.org
Joel Clark, ISDA London, +44 20 3808 9760, jclark@isda.org
Christopher Faimali, ISDA London, +44 20 3808 9736, cfaimali@isda.org
Nikki Lu, ISDA Hong Kong, +852 2200 5901, nlu@isda.org
Documents (1) for Initial Margin Collected by Top 20 Firms Up by 38% in 2021, ISDA Margin Survey Finds
Latest
ISDA ALF: Katherine Tew Darras Opening Remarks
ISDA Annual Legal Forum London, February 11, 2026 Opening Remarks Katherine Tew Darras ISDA General Counsel Good morning and welcome to ISDA’s Annual Legal Forum. Thank you for joining us today and thanks to our platinum sponsors – Cleary...
Maintaining Focus on Basel III Endgame Recalibration
In its original form, the US Basel III endgame proposal would have resulted in disproportionate increases in capital for trading book activities, forcing banks to make difficult choices about their participation in certain businesses. After two-and-a-half years, a revised proposal...
IRRBB Management in EMDEs
Interest rate risk in the banking book (IRRBB) has become a growing priority for banks and regulators in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). As many of these countries face monetary tightening cycles and ongoing macroeconomic volatility, bank balance sheets...
Response to CPMI-IOSCO on Consultation
On February 5, ISDA and FIA responded to the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) consultation on the management of general business risks and general business losses by financial market infrastructures (FMIs)....