On September 21, 2018, the Federal Reserve Board, the FDIC, the OCC, the Farm Credit Administration and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (together, the "Prudential Regulators") approved amendments to their margin requirements for uncleared swaps and security-based swaps to align with regulations of the Board, FDIC and OCC relating to stays on default remedies for certain qualified financial contracts (QFC Rules). The final amendments conform the definition of "eligible master netting agreement" under the Swap Margin Rule with the "qualifying master netting agreement" definition in the QFC Rules. Therefore, master netting agreements that comply with the limitations on default remedies in the QFC Rules are not excluded from the definition of EMNA for purposes of the Swap Margin Rules. Additionally, any legacy uncleared swaps not subject to the Swap Margin Rule would not become subject to the Swap Margin Rule due solely to amendments to comply with the QFC Rules.
The final amendments are effective 30 days following their publication in the Federal Register.
The final amendments are available at: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/files/bcreg20180921a.pdf and the Prudential Regulators' joint press release is available at: https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20180921a.htm.
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