Singapore/Hong Kong, 22 November 2022 – The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) was awarded Outstanding Contribution to Regulatory Reforms in the 5th Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence 2022 at an in-person ceremony on 22 November 2022.
ISDA was recognised for its leadership role to develop and mutualise cost-effective solutions to support regulatory compliance, its work to promote the safe and efficient operation of global derivatives markets, and its engagement with legislators, standard-setters and regulators at the global and national levels to help achieve consistent and appropriate regulations across jurisdictions.
Over the year, a key area of focus has remained LIBOR transition, building on ISDA’s work over years to introduce robust fallbacks for LIBOR-linked derivatives contracts. With five remaining USD LIBOR settings due to cease at the end of June 2023, ISDA has continued to promote market education, sign-ups to the fallbacks protocol, and help countries including in Southeast Asia to advance their transition efforts.
This year also saw the commencement of the sixth and final phase of implementation of regulatory initial margin requirements, bringing into scope more entities than in any of the other phases. Many of the phase six firms have used ISDA’s Create platform to negotiate and manage IM documentation, as well as its SIMM model, which is now considered the global standard model for calculating IM.
Another major ISDA initiative coming to fruition is its work on digital regulatory reporting, just in time for implementation of the CFTC rule rewrite for OTC derivatives reporting on 5 December 2022. Working with its members, ISDA converted the CFTC’s rules into human-readable, machine-executable open-source code to ease the compliance burden facing the industry. The solution will inevitably be carried over to incoming requirements in the EU as well as major APAC jurisdictions.
During the year, ISDA also advanced its work to enhance China’s derivatives market, through engagement with national regulators on legislative proposals and regulatory development and the publication of a legal opinion that recognises close-out netting under Chinese law – a significant development for the market. Other areas of focus for ISDA have been climate risk and sustainable finance, digital assets and crypto, and Basel III implementation and capital benchmarking.
“ISDA has a long history of serving derivatives markets participants. Yet it continues to tackle the most pressing and complex issues they face through new services, solutions, documentation and advocacy,” said one judge on the Regulation Asia awards panel. “ISDA’s work has benefitted all corners of the derivatives market, as we’ve seen in its work to drive forward LIBOR transition efforts globally, and ensure global regulatory requirements including in the crypto space are fit for purposes and not overly burdensome for the industry.”
In October, ISDA announced that its membership exceeded 1,000 firms for the first time. Its members span 79 countries and comprise institutions from across the derivatives market – including banks, asset managers, insurance companies, government and supranational entities, corporations, market infrastructure, vendors and law firms.
About the Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence 2022
The Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence recognises financial institutions, technology companies, legal and consulting firms, exchanges and other players that help ensure the highest regulatory compliance standards are upheld in the financial industry. Each year, senior industry practitioners serve on a judging panel to help assess and score each submission to determine the winning entrants.
For a full list of the award 2022 winners, visit www.regulationasia.com/awards.
About Regulation Asia
Regulation Asia is the leading source of actionable regulatory intelligence for Asia Pacific markets. With over 12,000 subscribers, including regulatory bodies, exchanges, banks, asset managers and service providers, Regulation Asia plays a key role in shaping the regulatory agenda.
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