The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications and Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has offered to create and operate a new repository for foreign exchange derivatives, SWIFT officials confirmed on Wednesday.
The two organizations have sent a proposal to the Association of Financial Markets in Europe and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association which sent out requests for a repository in April; responses were due in May. A global forex committee of AFME is set to pick the winner of the bidding process next month.
The repository for foreign exchange swaps and options would fulfill the requirements of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and similar legislation in Europe for over-the-counter derivative transactions to be reported to a repository which regulators could access.Forex derivative contracts are typically used for speculating and hedging – eliminating or reducing the risk against any potential price shifts.
SWIFT, which operates a worldwide securities messaging network is well known for its forex traffic. “We already transmit over 100,000 confirmation and settlement messages on foreign exchange derivatives daily and could copy those messages into a repository with the senders’ permission using existing tools in the network,” said Joe Halberstadt, head of SWIFT’s foreign exchange and derivatives unit. “DTCC would take those messages off the SWIFT network and store them in a repository.”
Halberstadt said that SWIFT’s potential venture with DTCC is not exclusive and SWIFT is open to working with whichever organization the AFME’s global FX committee selects as a provider for the repository.
Judith Inosanto, a spokeswoman for DTCC in New York, confirmed that it jointly responded to an RFP from AFME but declined to comment further. The DTCC, the umbrella organization for clearance and settlement of securities transactions in the US, already operates a trade repository for credit derivatives called Trade Information Warehouse and was selected by a committee of the International Securities and Derivatives Association to build one for interest rate swaps.
Among the other contenders for the role of forex derivatives repository is Regis-TR a repository for interest rate swaps now under development by the Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles.
