Central banks

Strength from swaps

Asian nations are becoming increasingly assertive in co-ordinating financial stability efforts in the Asia Pacific, notably via a raft of new swap agreements between the region's largest economies. Are these efforts having the desired impact? Christopher…

OTC trade repository plan faces hurdles

Financial authorities in the US and Europe have advocated the introduction of a central trade repository to gather data on the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market, but there is concern that multiple repositories could do more harm than good.

BIS shows first OTC derivatives market decline

The total outstanding notional of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives contracts fell 13.4% to $592 trillion at the end of December 2008, from $683.7 trillion at the end of June 2008, according to statistics released by the Bank for International…