The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) released the results of the 2010 Operations Benchmarking Survey today at its 25th Annual General Meeting in San Francisco.
The Survey shows the results of industry investment in infrastructure over the past several years. The confirmation process, for example, has been automated to the point where 99 percent of eligible credit default swaps are confirmed electronically, compared with 95 percent last year. Similarly, 77 percent of eligible interest rate derivatives are confirmed electronically compared with 61 percent last year.
Infrastructure improvements are also reflected in the continuing decrease in confirmations outstanding. Credit derivatives, for example, show an average across all respondents of 1.1 business days’ worth of aged outstanding confirmations, compared with 3.8 business days in last year’s Survey. Equity derivative confirmations outstanding also fell, to 7.6 business days compared with 9.2 last year. To put these numbers in perspective, confirmations outstanding in 2006 were 12.9 business days for credit derivatives and 15.1 business days for equity derivatives.
“The results of the 2010 ISDA Operations Benchmarking Survey illustrate the significant progress that ISDA and the industry have made to build a stronger and more resilient operational infrastructure for the privately negotiated derivatives business,” said Robert Pickel, ISDA executive vice chairman. “Progress will continue as the industry works proactively and cooperatively with regulators and policy makers globally.”
