Companies must rush to get ready for OTC derivative regulation

One fallout from the financial crisis and the desire to reduce risk in the financial system is the new regulation of derivatives which will also hit non-financial companies, even though they were not a cause of the crisis.

The European legislation came into force on 16 August 2012, but in their haste to regulate, the authorities had not agreed the full detail at that stage. The final rules on many of the sections relevant to ordinary companies were only recently approved in early February, with the first obligation on derivative confirmations starting on 15 March 2013.

During the ACT’s technical webinar today that briefed treasurers on the new obligations, a poll found that banks and service providers are well behind in offering advice and services to their customers. 44% of organisations are only just beginning to hear from a few banks or service providers and 39% have heard nothing from them.

Equally a further a poll has revealed that just 38% of companies have their implementation projects up and running, 41% say that they are starting to think about it and 21% have done nothing yet.

Colin Tyler, ACT Chief Executive said:

 All along the ACT has been saying that non-financial companies were not part of the problem and that burdening them with unnecessary regulation would be damaging to economic activity generally. There are significant concessions for corporates but even so the external reporting of deals seems excessive, while the lead time for preparations is very short. 

---------- Ends ----------------

NOTES TO EDITORS

The rules on confirmations start on 15 March 2013, the requirement for next day reporting of derivatives starts on 1 July at the earliest and procedures around reconciliations and disputes start 15 September 2013. These rules apply to all EU companies of any size and cover all OTC derivatives irrespective of deal size.