When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd Frank) was passed back in July 2010, you could be forgiven for thinking that this was the regulation for global OTC swap reform. The US really were ‘first-to-market’ on this one, by a long margin, and we didn’t hear about OTC swap reform from other parts of the globe for the best part of another two years.

Skip forward to August 2012 when the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) was passed – the European equivalent of Dodd Frank’s Title VII – and the penny started to drop that this was unfolding to be a far bigger initiative than many folks had first thought.

Now, if you had asked me earlier this year “was there life outside of Dodd Frank and EMIR”, I would have said yes and I could have told you that Canada and Australia had their own OTC swap reform programs, and that Hong Kong and Singapore were also looking to do something.

But that was about it.

It was only when I started digging deeper, that I realised how far off the mark I was. I mean, I only forgot Japan – the third biggest economy in the world – and I know they trade swaps out there for sure! Continue reading →