Buy side must clear hurdles to revive CDS liquidity

Some firms forced to watch from sidelines as voluntary clearing of single-name CDSs takes off

In late 2015, a group of investment firms made an extraordinary commitment to voluntarily comply with a clearing mandate that had not yet been adopted by regulators.

The move was borne of frustration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which had delayed acting on a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act directing it to rule on whether single-name credit default swaps (CDSs) should be mandated for central clearing.

Tired of waiting – and convinced central clearing would revive