Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Dodd-Frank Developments Affecting Swaps

Author: David Schwartz J.D. CPA
For the most part, provisions of the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection relating to derivatives are aimed at increasing transparency, altering clearing and exchange trading requirements, regulation of swap dealers and other swap market participants, restrictions on swaps trading by banks and associated increases in capital and margin requirements. The Act leaves many of the details of implementation to regulators. With over a year behind us, we can now reflect on what regulators have proposed, adopted, and left unfinished with regard to swaps.
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Saturday, October 1, 2011

September 2011 Basel Committee Recap

Author: David Schwartz J.D. CPA
At its September 28, 2011 meeting, the Basel Committee (the “Committee) approved a range of measures aimed at finalizing the Committee’s July 2011 consultative document, “Global systemically important banks: Assessment methodology and the additional loss absorbency requirement.” The document sets out the Committee’s proposal on the assessment methodology for (1) determining global systemic importance, (2) determining the magnitude of additional loss absorbency that global systemically important banks should have, and (3) proposes the arrangements by which the methodologies will be phased in. 
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Friday, September 23, 2011

Bank of England Examines Market Developments in Securities Lending

Author: David Schwartz J.D. CPA
In their Quarterly Bulletin (Q3 2011), the Bank of England (BOE) updates us on the latest market-driven and regulatory developments in securities lending, and lays out the lessons learned from the financial crisis about the risk of contagion arising from the interconnectedness between participants created by securities lending transactions, and the dangerous opacity of risks incurred across all participants.
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Thursday, September 15, 2011

European Central Bank Introduces New Data Sets

Author: David Schwartz J.D. CPA

Market events over the past several years have made it quite clear that meaningful and transparent financial data are vital to effective monitoring of market participants as well as understanding the scale of the shadow banking activities and their interconnectedness with the traditional banking system. In a June address in Frankfort, Jürgen Stark, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), announced new statistical data sets intended to improve the existing balance sheet and interest rate reporting by "monetary financial institutions." The ECB has introduced these new data sets as part of their effort develop relevant and real-time policies to assess systematic risks and keep apace of innovations and movements in the financial landscape.

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Thursday, September 15, 2011

UK Independent Commission on Banking Issues Recommendations

Author: David Schwartz J.D. CPA
The UK Independent Commission on Banking's much anticipated report examining options for the reform of the country’s banking industry was released on September 12.  The report proposes several changes to the structure of the UK banking system that potentially may simplify identification and remediation of failing financial institutions and reduce the probability and effect of bank failures, including the novel idea of "ring-fencing" of retail and wholesale/investment banking activities within universal banks to insulate UK retail banking services from investment banking risk. 


 
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