The size of the CDS market

From an uncertain inception date, the credit default swap market has blossomed to become a major asset class in the capital markets. For this growth to continue and the market to reach its full potential, certain impediments will need to be removed

In the early days of the credit derivatives market, pinning down precise figures for the volume outstanding in the CDS market was notoriously difficult, with trading conducted over-the-counter rather than via an exchange, and banks and other intermediaries reluctant to reveal much detail about their activity in the market.

That partly reflected the fact that the CDS market originally evolved as a successor to a series of informal, privately tailored agreements between banks and their