MarketVoice News
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Bits to Barrels
Trafigura, the global commodity trading house, is experimenting with a distributed ledger system for processing trades in crude oil. In March it announced that it is working with Natixis, a French bank, and IBM to develop a platform that will digitize crude oil trades, and said the new system will offer "improved transparency, enhanced security and optimized efficiency. The system is hosted on IBM's cloud platform, Bluemix, and is built on an open source network called Hyperledger Fabric.
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Standardized Stress Testing for CCPs
In the paper “Stress This House,” LCH proposed a stress testing regime for central counterparties that would enable members to draw meaningful comparisons among CCPs, regardless of the variations due to product portfolio, margin models, confidence levels, default fund structure, assessments levels, etc.
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Expanded Access to Commodity Derivatives
The Securities and Exchange Board of India announced it will issue unified licenses to brokers and clearing members to transact in both commodity derivative and equity markets. This follows the merger of the Forward Markets Commission, which regulates commodity markets in India, and SEBI in September 2015. Previously, separate legal entities were required for the different businesses. Additionally, SEBI proposed to permit hedge funds to invest in commodity derivatives and said it will soon permit exchanges to offer commodity derivative options.
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Rule 1.31
In January, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a proposal to update and modernize Rule 1.31, which sets out certain recordkeeping requirements for futures commission merchants, commodity pool operators, trading firms that are exchange members, and other market participants.
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People - June 2017
The Hong Kong government reappointed Ashley Alder as chief executive officer of the Securities and Futures Commission for another three-year term effective from Oct. 1.
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Rule 1.31
In January, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a proposal to update and modernize Rule 1.31, which sets out certain recordkeeping requirements for futures commission merchants, commodity pool operators, trading firms that are exchange members, and other market participants.
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Leverage Ratio Rethink
Two influential regulatory officials have indicated that they share the widespread concerns within the derivatives industry regarding the impact of Basel III capital requirements on clearing firms.
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Trump Nomination
On May 2, the Senate confirmed the nomination of Jay Clayton to serve as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The nomination was approved in a 61 to 37 vote, with several Democrats joining their Republican colleagues in supporting the nomination. He was sworn into office on May 4.
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Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be: On CCPs and Banks
A central counterparty, viewed from an economic perspective, is a “commitment mechanism.” The ultimate function of a CCP is to assure performance of contract obligations between its members. They do so by becoming substituted counterparties to all trades submitted for clearing—becoming, in effect “the buyer to every seller and the seller to every buyer”—thereby ensuring the performance of open contracts.
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Insight: FIA's Roadmap to Smarter Regulation and Healthier Markets
We’ve all heard the saying, “Work smarter, not harder.” Nearly a decade since the financial crisis, we are finally getting a chance to put this adage into practice.
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