On Friday, April 3, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) announced another delay in the implementation of the global implementation of mandatory initial margin for uncleared swaps. The initial margin compliance date for Phase 5 will now be September 1, 2021. The compliance date for Phase 6 will be September 1, 2022. (Phase 6 was created by a BCBS-IOSCO announcement last year).

The announcement includes the following statement: “With this extension, the final implementation phase will take place on 1 September 2022, at which point covered entities with an aggregate average notional amount (AANA) of non-centrally cleared derivatives greater than €8 billion will be subject to the requirements. As an intermediate step, from 1 September 2021 covered entities with an AANA of non-centrally cleared derivatives greater than €50 billion will be subject to the requirements.”

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), US prudential regulators and national regulators in other countries will have to amend their respective margin rules to make this change official for their respective jurisdictions. (Coincidentally, the CFTC just recently adopted a final rule that reflects the creation of Phase 6 that was announced last year by BCBS-IOSCO.)

The announcement is available here.