A decent weekend. Not much going on…

And then, on Monday morning, bam! Breaking news from The Wall Street Journal: “Big U.S. Banks Make Swaps A Foreign Affair”. The story basically posits that US banks are using their overseas affiliates to write some swaps with non-US counterparties without a parent company guarantee. This means that the transactions would not fall under the purview of US regulators.

Sounds troubling.

But as the infomercials say: Wait! There’s more!

A lot more.

First, the transactions would in fact fall under the purview of regulators in the jurisdictions in which they are done.

Second, on the major systemic risk issues (clearing, trade reporting, margining), there is likely to be little to no substantive difference between major jurisdictions.

So this clearly is not a case of regulatory arbitrage. It’s really about the fact that some customers do not want or have the capacity to understand and comply with regulations in two different jurisdictions. These non-US customers prefer doing business with non-US firms. They don’t want to trade on SEFs. So the US firms are structuring their businesses to meet this demand.

Most people know all of this, as the Journal article acknowledges.

So what’s really the issue? Apparently, it’s the fact there are some differences between jurisdictions in the timing and substance of trade execution rules. So some see the shift to trading overseas as a way for firms to avoid trading on SEFs, which they view as a bad thing, because:

“For US regulators, the new rules aim to bring swaps trading into the open and protect the US financial system from firms amassing huge derivatives positions in non-US markets.”

But that’s not the role of SEFs – that’s what clearing and trade reporting are all about. And as we noted, on these issues there’s not much if any difference between jurisdictions.

One final thought: the article begins with a chart that purports to show concentration in the derivatives markets. The data in question, however, is for the US only and includes only US banks. As we have written, the derivatives markets are truly global, and a look at our report here shows a more accurate picture.

Misperceptions like this… that’s why we’re hangin’ around, with nothing to do but frown….