On December 29, 2014, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight (DSIO) granted an extension of previous no-action relief for certain futures commission merchants (FCMs) to comply with requirements to obtain acknowledgment letters from depositories. CFTC Regulations 1.20(d), 1.26, 22.5 and 30.7(d) require FCMs to deposit customer funds only with depositories that have provided an acknowledgment letter granting DSIO direct, read-only electronic access to transaction and account balance information for FCM customer accounts. Certain depositories require the CFTC to enter into a standard online access agreement before they will provide the acknowledgment letter. Because DSIO has not completed its review of, and has not executed, such agreements, certain depositories have not provided the acknowledgment letters required by CFTC Regulations. DSIO is extending no-action relief until April 30 for FCMs that are unable to obtain an acknowledgement letter solely due to the lack of an executed online access agreement between the FCM’s depository and DSIO.

The no-action letter is available here.