The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation and Swift have been named by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to provide the CFTC Interim Compliant Identifier (CICI) for legal entities involved in OTC derivatives trading.
“We are pleased that the CFTC has recognised the strength and immediate readiness of the DTCC/Swift proposal for the CICI programme,” says Michael Bodson, DTCC president and chief executive. “We expect to move rapidly to provide CICIs for organisations that are required by the CFTC to submit transactions to swap data repositories, to identify both the dealers and their counterparties around the world.”
The CICI is designed to be an identifier for all legal entities dealing in OTC derivatives falling under CFTC jurisdiction until an international programme for a Legal Entity Identifier is launched, which is expected by March 2013. DTCC and Swift have already assigned and validated information on more than 24,000 provisional CICIs for legal entities, many of which are involved in OTC derivatives trading, and made them available through the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) website.
Firms involved in the OTC credit and interest rate derivatives markets will shortly be able to register for and be assigned an identifier using DTCC and Swift’s system prior to the effective date of the CFTC transaction reporting and recordkeeping rule. CICIs will be required to be used by counterparties in those markets 60 days after certain swap definitions are published by the CFTC in the Federal Register. While the CFTC has finalised those definitions, they have not yet appeared in the Federal Register, although they are expected shortly.
Chris Church (pictured), chief executive and global head of securities at Swift, says: “This is a major milestone and a great step towards helping the industry resolve a major challenge affecting the global financial markets. We are pleased to have been selected and look forward to working with DTCC to further minimise systemic risk and drive down costs for the industry.”
