After the market turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in March and April 2020, the ISDA Clearing Member Committee analyzed how central counterparty (CCP) risk management frameworks reacted to the crisis, based on feedback from CCPs.
The results show CCPs dealt with the crisis well, managing record volumes while most of their staff worked from home. In total, there were three member defaults or close-outs, none of which threatened financial stability. This reflects a more stable financial system overall: clearing members are much better capitalized and hold more liquidity compared to the last crisis.
However, some issues did emerge. Procyclical initial margin requirements exacerbated market stress at certain points. Clearing members also lacked timely information about backtesting breaches and procyclicality in margin models. The paper makes recommendations to address both of those points.
Documents (1) for COVID-19 and CCP Risk Management Frameworks
Latest
Digital Assets and Derivatives: Where Next?
Digital assets are moving into a phase of institutional integration into derivatives markets. Trading venues, custodial infrastructures and tokenization platforms now exist across both traditional financial markets and public blockchain networks. While this diversity has accelerated innovation and liquidity formation,...
ISDA Publishes ISDA SIMM® Methodology, Version 2.8+2512
Following the 2026 primary calibration exercise, ISDA is pleased to publish SIMM® version 2.8+2512. This version of the ISDA SIMM has updates that are based on the full recalibration of the model using historical data up to 31 December 2025....
ISDA Treasury Forum: Scott O'Malia Opening Remarks
ISDA Treasury Forum June 11, 2026 Opening Remarks Scott O’Malia, ISDA CEO Hello and welcome to the ISDA Treasury Forum. I’d like to start by thanking CME Group for working with us once again to make this event happen...
Launch of US Treasury Repo Market Indicators
ISDA has launched the ISDA-Actrix US Treasury Repo Market Clearing Indicators in collaboration with Actrix. The indicators illustrate central clearing adoption in the US Treasury repo market. Sponsored cleared repo volumes are used as a proxy to monitor client participation...