Welcomes Comments of Senior Supervisors Group
In testimony before the US Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Robert Pickel, executive director and chief executive officer of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc (ISDA), today emphasized the beneficial role credit default swaps (CDS) play in the global economy and described the robust infrastructure that ISDA and industry participants have developed to support the CDS business.
"CDS are simple financial transactions negotiated between two counterparties," said Mr. Pickel in his testimony. "They enable firms to transfer and more effectively manage risk. In the real world, CDS play an important role in the growth and function of our nation’s (and the global) economy." He explained that this role includes enabling banks to diversify and better manage their balance sheets and allowing companies to hedge against the default risk of their suppliers.
"Privately negotiated derivatives have continued to perform well during a greater period of stress than the world financial system has witnessed in decades," Pickel added. “In the wake of failures of major market participants, both counterparties and issuers of debt, CDS participants have settled trades in an orderly way precisely according to the rules and procedures established by Congress and market participants."
CDS activity has been a tremendous success, Pickel concluded. "We are confident that policymakers and market participants alike will find their prudent efforts in helping build the infrastructure for derivatives over the last twenty-five years have been rewarded."
In addition, ISDA’s and the industry’s efforts were commended in the Senior Supervisors Group report, Observations on Management of Recent Credit Default Swap Credit Events. "ISDA welcomes the view of the Senior Supervisors Group report that market participants’ support of our auction supplement and ‘big bang’ protocol will help to reduce uncertainty and make credit event management more operationally efficient," said, Pickel, commenting on the report.
A complete transcript of Robert Pickel’s testimony is available at www.isda.org.
