In today’s uncertain world, it’s all too easy to imagine a new market event that sends everyone scrambling to sift through mountains of contractual agreements to ascertain the impact on their derivatives trades. That’s always been a slow, operationally intensive process at a time when speed is usually of the essence. Fortunately, the integration of two key industry platforms will make that process a lot easier.

Late last month, ISDA, S&P Global Market Intelligence and Linklaters | CreateiQ announced that the ISDA Create contract negotiation solution is now integrated with S&P Global Market Intelligence’s Counterparty Manager application – enabling the end-to-end negotiation of key derivatives contracts on one platform.

Counterparty Manager includes Request For Amendment, an online tool that enables market participants to make certain adjustments to their ISDA documents, such as adding counterparties to an umbrella Master Agreement. By linking Counterparty Manager with ISDA Create, users will be able to make more complex amendments to their agreements from a unified platform. ISDA Create will eventually be integrated with other modules of Counterparty Manager, ultimately enabling users to easily access a complete digital record of all relationship and contractual data entered on either platform.

Having all this data available in one place, at the click of a few buttons, will save firms huge amounts of time and effort, avoiding the need to scan through multiple systems – or, worse, rummage through reams of paper documents – to locate critical information they need about their trading relationships. Having this data in digital form will allow firms to pass it directly through to risk, collateral and other systems, further increasing efficiency throughout the organization and reducing the potential for error.

Visit our dedicated ISDA Create webpage for more information and to book a demo.

We’re really excited about this initiative, as it brings us one step closer to having a single golden source for all contractual information. But it’s not our only initiative to make the use of derivatives documentation more efficient.

For one thing, we’re continuing to expand our MyLibrary electronic documentation platform. MyLibrary transforms how firms access and use derivatives documentation by making it much easier to search for key terms and track how the documents have evolved over time. Crucially, users can swiftly locate the terms that were applicable at the time a particular trade was executed, rather than having to manually comb through pages and pages of definitions and supplements to determine the relevant provisions – a substantial time saver.

Our MyLibrary platform now hosts around 90 derivatives documents in digital form, including the 2002 ISDA Master Agreement, the 2021 ISDA Interest Rate Derivatives Definitions and the 2022 ISDA Verified Carbon Credit Transactions Definitions. New documents are being added to MyLibrary all the time, and we’re now exploring the use of artificial intelligence to make that process quicker.

We’re also working on the development of an industry notices hub, which will allow the instantaneous delivery and receipt of critical termination-related notices on a highly secure, confidential and robust online platform. Designated people at each firm would be able to access the hub from anywhere in the world, overcoming challenges potentially caused by pandemic lockdowns, out-of-date notice addresses or a hostile environment at an office location.

This is all part of our strategy to bring greater automation and efficiency to derivatives markets. We believe faster, easier access to key contractual information in digital form will help cut costs for financial institutions and reduce the potential for risk during periods when quick responses are critical.

Please contact noticeshub@isda.org or isdalegal@isda.org for more information about the ISDA Notices Hub or MyLibrary, respectively.

To join a working group focusing on the ISDA Notices Hub, click here.