Prudential Regulators Extend Phase-in Of Initial Margin Requirements For Covered Swap Entities

The OCC, Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, Farm Credit Association, and Federal Housing Finance Agency jointly adopted an interim final rule to delay the compliance dates for initial margin requirements. The interim final rule, now available in the Federal Register, goes into effect on September 1, 2020, and comments must be received by August 31, 2020.

The interim final rule follows a recommendation from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and IOSCO, and recent action by the CFTC. As amended by the final rule, initial margin requirements that were scheduled to be phased in on September 1, 2020 (for entities between $50 billion and $750 billion under the notional counting requirements) and September 1, 2021 (for entities between $8 billion and $50 billion) will be delayed by a year until 2021 and 2022, respectively.