Regulation has ‘Minimal Impact’ on Companies’ use of Interest Rate Derivatives
Financial reforms are having little to no impact on corporate use of, and dealer selection for, trading interest-rate derivatives according to research from Greenwich Associates, the US-based global market intelligence and advisory services group.
The group notes that the proposed Group of 20 (G20) derivatives market reform measures were intended to reduce systemic risk in part by diluting big dealers’ share of the over-the counter (OTC) derivatives markets. Although its research evidences some hints of movement in this direction by financial end-users, especially those in the US, there has been no impact for global corporate treasurers.
Corporate users of interest rate derivatives globally continue to concentrate over three-quarters of their business with their top three dealers and over 40% of that volume with a single primary dealer, says Greenwich. This continues a pre-reform derivatives market trend for corporate end-users, who have concentrated 75%-80% of their business with their top three dealers since 2006.
This is in large part because swaps clearing and trading mandates have yet to impact the corporate end-user community, although the group expects this immunity to change to be short-lived. “A higher risk weighting for banks trades done bilaterally – even when the customer is exempt from clearing rules – will force banks to raise prices for corporate end user clients.” said Kevin McPartland head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates.
Conversely, among the financial end-users community of asset managers and hedge funds, a shift toward a more diverse dealer list for interest-rate derivatives has begun – although only in the US, where derivatives reform is furthest along. The average number of dealers used to trade interest-rate derivatives by financial end users is up 15% from 2007 to 2014. Trading is also less concentrated than it was it 2007 – on average an investor’s top dealer is seeing 29% of flow, down from 38%, and the top three dealers are seeing 64% of flow, down from 72%.
“The big dealers are still critical to the market’s functioning, but the changing market structure is causing those initially affected – US asset managers and hedge funds – to diversify their counterparty mix,” said McPartland. “This trend will work its way to corporate derivatives users in the coming years, but as our research shows, that time has not yet arrived.”