The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday set an April 10 compliance deadline for newly designated swap dealers and for reporting historical swap transactions.
In a "no-action" letter the agency said any entity that expects to be designated a swap dealer under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act must be in compliance with the agency's swap reporting rules no later than April 10, 2013.
Under the new law, firms that transact more than $8 billion of swaps are required to register with the CFTC as a swap dealer within two months. However, the firm could elect to register as a swap dealer at an earlier date.
"Concerns have been expressed, by market participants and other interested parties, regarding the potential for differing compliance dates for swap dealer reporting under the swap data reporting rules, in the event that one or more entities apply to register as swap dealers before their swap dealer registration deadline," the letter said.
Trades reported to the commission by swap dealers, effective October 2012, will be among the first the commission will report to the public -- but not all swap dealers will necessarily be registered with the commission by then, the letter explained.
"The public dissemination of data reported by one, or even a few, early registrants may facilitate the identification of parties to the swaps for which data has been reported," the CFTC said. Under the letter, swap dealers will not have to report data before April 10.
In addition, "in order to accommodate differing compliance dates, costly last-minute modifications [to swap data reporting] infrastrucutre would be required in order to avoid reporting errors," the letter said.
