Dealers warn Asia: get ready now for 2020 IM deadline

Firms preparing to post margin in September 2020 need to complete systems by March 2019

Under Singaporean rules, in-scope entities will have to notify the regulator of their preparedness in March 2020

The thousand or so firms that will have to start posting initial margin (IM) on non-cleared derivatives trades from September 2020 – including many from Asia, which largely escaped the previous phases of the rules – are running out of time to prepare, dealers have warned.

Under Singaporean rules, in-scope entities will have to notify the regulator of their preparedness in March 2020, according to Frederick Shen, head of global treasury at Singapore’s OCBC Bank. That notification needs to