The Division of Clearing and Risk (DCR) of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an interpretive letter regarding cleared swaps customer collateral requirements under Part 22 of the CFTC’s rules. The DCR interpretation addresses a number of issues with respect to which derivatives clearing organizations (DCOs) and clearing member futures commission merchants (FCMs) requested clarification, including: (1) limitations on the use of cleared swaps customer collateral; (2) the use of variation margin, in particular if a DCO elects to net variation margin across an FCM’s cleared swaps customers; (3) comingling of cleared swaps customer collateral; (4) the processes by which an FCM may report to a DCO its customers’ portfolio of rights and obligations; (5) the circumstances in which a DCO may accept cleared swaps customer collateral in excess of the DCO’s initial margin requirements; and (vi) the determination of the value of cleared swaps customer collateral in the event of an FCM default.
The DCR interpretive letter is available here.
