Credit derivatives processing is now faster, says Isda

Financial institutions significantly improved their credit derivatives processing in 2003, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association's (Isda's) '2004 Operations Benchmarking Survey'.

“There is a keen focus by the industry on improving credit derivatives processing time, consistent with the endeavours of Isda’s operations strategy initiative launched in late 2003,” said Robert Pickel, Isda chief executive.

The survey, which included responses from 67 institutions, reported that 88% of credit derivatives confirmations were sent out in the target time – T+5 – versus 83% in the previous year. In addition, 96% of FRA and vanilla swap trade data was received by the back office on the same trade day. Meanwhile, 98% of credit derivatives trade data reached the back office on T+1. Credit derivatives data processed within one hour also increased to 24% – an 8% increase from the previous year.

Isda conducts the survey annually to identify and track operations processing trends in the privately negotiated derivatives industry. The complete survey results are available on Isda’s web site at www.isda.org.