Isda publishes results of operations benchmarking survey

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has published the results of its 2006 benchmarking survey. The association has been collecting results for this survey annually since 2000 and analyses performance data on operations of privately negotiated derivatives, or over-the-counter derivatives.

Initial results suggest an increase of processing staff, perhaps due to increased confirmation backlogs. Confirmation dispatch times were the lowest for vanilla swaps - trades that can be matched electronically by a commercial auto-matching machine. The biggest improvement in confirmation dispatch times was for credit derivatives, which commonly fail to meet normal dispatch times because the transaction involves a new or unusual product.

While progress has been made in some areas, the