The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) in collaboration with European financial industry bodies have issued a policy statement in support of the European Commission’s initiative to simplify the application of the EU taxonomy. The statement calls for clear legal certainty that all amendments will take effect from 1 January 2026 and urges the European Parliament and Council to confirm their non-objection to the proposed changes in the delegated regulation. Notably, the industry bodies emphasise that the draft regulation postpones the application of the trading book key performance indicator until 2028.

Clearing requirements have brought about significant changes to derivatives documentation. While uncleared derivatives continue to be governed by an International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) Master Agreement and a Credit Support Annex, cleared derivatives require further documentation such as: (i) clearing agreements, (ii) give-up agreements, and (iii) collateral transformation agreements. The derivatives industry has created standard forms to assist with the documentation burden arising from putting clearing arrangements in place and generally to assist with complying with the new rules governing derivatives. Those standard documents include classification letters, delegated reporting agreements (both available from the ISDA website) and client clearing documentation for both US and non-US platforms, as well as a number of protocols and standard amendment agreements. For more information on documenting clearing relationships, see Practice Note: Documenting a derivatives clearing relationship—EU and UK platforms. The purpose of this Practice Note is to describe the key terms of the 2017 ISDA/Futures Industry Association (FIA) Cleared Derivatives Execution Agreement (the 'Agreement') and the ISDA/FIA Client

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Futures Industry Association (FIA) have published a joint response to a Bank of England (BoE) discussion paper on central counterparty (CCP) resolution. The associations support greater ex-ante clarity on valuation capabilities and the boundary between recovery and resolution, while opposing creditor hierarchy changes that would weaken the no-creditor-worse-off safeguard. They stress that default fund contributions should not absorb non-default losses. Where clearing members or other creditors bear losses or provide resources in resolution, ISDA and FIA underline the importance of credible mechanisms to return value to them, with profit-sharing arrangements cited as one option. The associations also encourage the BoE to consider alternative loss-absorption sources, such as right-sized CCP equity and parent-group capacity, before drawing on clearing member resources. On partial tear-up, the associations support commercially reasonable pricing and recognise that a pro-rata approach may often be equitable, but emphasise assessing hedging, liquidity and contagion effects on non-defaulting members and clients. ISDA and FIA also support the BoE’s proposed resolvability outcomes but call for greater transparency on resolvability assessments and resolution planning, and for assessments to address how the BoE would coordinate with third-country authorities where a UK CCP resolution could transmit losses or disruption outside the UK.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Futures Industry Association (FIA) have submitted a joint response to the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) consultation on the management of general business risks and general business losses by financial market infrastructures (FMIs). The associations supported the principle that infrastructures should maintain sufficient resources to absorb losses for which they are solely responsible, as these losses arise from risks within their control and should not be allocated to participants. They welcomed a more prescriptive approach, noting that previous international assessments identified significant inconsistencies and gaps in existing practices. ISDA and FIA called for clearer and more consistent standards for identifying loss scenarios, determining the size of liquid net assets funded by equity, and setting expectations for transparency, governance and stakeholder engagement. They recommended increasing the minimum equity-funded resource requirement beyond six months of operating expenses, adopting common scenario standards across infrastructures, improving disclosure of risk management assumptions and available resources, and conducting post-guidance assessments to support global convergence. The associations also reiterated their opposition to the use of variation margin gains haircutting to cover general business losses, citing its misalignment with the nature of such losses and its potential to undermine market stability.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the Global Foreign Exchange Division (GFXD) of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA) have released a consolidated response to the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regarding the future of the systematic internaliser (SI) regime. The industry bodies advocated for the FCA's proposal to remove the prerequisite for firms to identify themselves as SIs for derivatives trading as it would not have any material affect on: reporting, best execution practices, or overall market structure.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) have submitted responses to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s consultation paper CP25/32, which focus on improving the UK transaction reporting regime. Both ISDA and ICMA support the overall objective and several of the proposed changes aimed at reducing the regulatory burden, the removal of FX derivatives and EU venue transactions from scope and a reduction in back reporting periods. However, ISDA opposes the introduction of conditional single-sided reporting and proposes that the unique product identifier replace the over-the-counter international securities identification number. In addition, ICMA has also identified targeted areas for reform and provided recommendations to refine the framework. The FCA intends to publish a policy statement in summer 2026.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) have jointly responded to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision's proposed technical amendment on counterparty credit risk (CCR) hedging exposures. The associations argue that the suggested changes are unnecessary and overly complex, given that the current substitution method is already highly conservative. Additionally, they highlight inconsistencies in the proposed alignment between collateral and credit derivatives treatments.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) have responded to the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS), Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures (CPMI) and International Organization of Securities Commission (IOSCO) consultation on transparency and responsiveness of initial margin in centrally cleared markets. Generally, ISDA and IIF expressed support in enhancing transparency on cleared margin which will assist liquidity preparedness and strengthen the system's resilience. The associations are supportive of recommendations one through eight but raised some concerns over other parts of the report.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) have submitted an addendum to the joint US Basel III ‘endgame’ notice of proposed rulemaking (NPR). The addendum provides additional information on the index bucketing approach for equity investment in funds and an update to the Fundamental Review of the Trading Book Standardised Approach Quantitative Impact Study statistics.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) have submitted a joint comment letter to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) supporting its proposed revisions to business conduct and swap documentation requirements for swap dealers and major swap participants. Filed on 24 October 2025, the response welcomes the elimination of pre-trade mid-market mark and scenario analysis disclosures, which the associations say add little value and impose unnecessary burdens. It also backs permanent relief for intended-to-be-cleared and prime brokerage swaps, alignment with existing no-action relief, and greater flexibility in daily mark valuation. ISDA and SIFMA urge the CFTC to adopt the proposals swiftly to enhance regulatory certainty, market efficiency, and consistency with securities-based swap rules.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and Tokenovate have launched a taskforce within the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) to accelerate the operationalisation of the Common Domain Model (CDM). The initiative aims to address growing market demand for standardised and interoperable post-trade processing by delivering an open-source, production-ready library of CDM functions and workflows, freely accessible to market participants. The taskforce will initially focus on automating interest rate resets and is building a smart contract model within the CDM that translates ISDA’s legal and operational standards into executable form.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) and UK Finance have published a joint paper outlining recommended reforms to the UK European Market Infrastructure Regulation (UK EMIR). The paper evaluates each element of the EU EMIR 3.0 reforms, proposing which measures should be adopted or modified for the UK regime. Key recommendations include: simplifying reporting requirements, adjusting clearing obligations, updating counterparty categorisation, reforming risk mitigation rules and removing equivalence conditions for intragroup transactions. The proposals are designed to reduce the regulatory burden while maintaining market stability.