We are pleased to welcome Torsten Krebs as an author on the DRS site. With over 27 years experience in international custody regulation, Torsten is DRS’ main expert in custody and related matters. He has just published the first in a short series of articles – Custody 101- aiming to give an introduction to the […]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers! Early 2018 will bring DRS a shiny new website- instant insight, extensive training materials and more compelling content all round. We intend it to become the reference site for all derivatives documentation news and issues as well as a highly valuable resource for BAU […]

On 24 November the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) released their long (in context) awaited forbearance announcement with respect to the margining or not of forward foreign exchange. A short summary follows: Everyone else agreed to this but didn’t follow on Our hands are tied and we will need to change EU law Likely changes will […]

On 25 April 2016, the EBA published a consolidated list of other systemically important institutions (O-SIIs) across the EU, also known as domestic systemically important banks (D-SIBs). The list contains close to 200 institutions, with the majority of member states imposing an additional O-SII buffer under CRD IV to reflect their systemic importance. This buffer can […]

ESMA has updated its EMIR Q&A Level 3 text on OTC derivatives, CCPs and trade repositories. The update clarifies how the frontloading and clearing obligations apply to swaps created via the exercise of a swaption. Coming a scant three business days before the start of frontloading, the update continues the EMIR practice of just in […]

Introduction On 17 December 2015, the EBA published its “Draft Regulatory Technical Standards on a minimum set of the information on financial contracts that should be contained in the detailed records and the circumstances in which the requirement should be imposed” (the RTS) as required by Article 71(7) of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Direction […]

The FTT proposal has survived another annual deadline, yesterday’s meeting of EU finance ministers agreed a one page framework for the controversial “Tobin” tax, covering equity, bond and derivatives transactions in the 10 countries[1] who still champion the scheme. The document contains no detail or agreement on how the tax is to be levied, how […]

Today’s FT  and Bloomberg report a compromise on bank restructuring between two large voting blocs of the European Parliament. The proposal would apply to all G-SIB EU banks and all others that have total assets of at least €30bn. and trading activities of €70bn. or more. The deal, which still requires plenary approval, would ban […]

On 15 October 2015, the Bank of England and Financial Services Bill 2015-2016 was published. Of most note is Part 2 of the Bill, which amends the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (FSMA), extending the Senior Managers regime to all firms which are authorised to provide financial services under FSMA. Section 22 of the Bill […]