SWIFT’s affirmations application is supporting compliance with European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) by making multi-asset class electronic confirmation matching accessible to players of all sizes.
“Currently, many foreign exchange (FX), money market (MM), derivative and commodities transactions are confirmed by email or fax, or not confirmed at all,” said a statement from the firm.
“The operational and settlement risks introduced by this manual process are unacceptable in today’s environment, and the regulators want to see them eliminated.”
Article 11 of EMIR (in force since March this year) is concerned with risk mitigation for non-centrally cleared OTC derivatives, and requires “the timely confirmation, where available, by electronic means, of the terms of the relevant OTC derivative contract”. In light of EMIR, there is a clear need to ensure all client trades are confirmed with an electronic audit trail.
Paul Taylor, director of global matching at SWIFT, said: “Under the terms of EMIR, investment banks need to automate the processing of confirmations not just with their market side counterparty brokers, but also with their investment manager and corporate buy-side clients."
"SWIFT’s Affirmations solution, implemented in conjunction with Alliance Lite2 and Accord, serves the requirements of both sell and buy side firms and makes automating treasury confirmations easy and cost-effective for all market participants. Connection via Alliance Lite2 also presents underlying clients with the opportunity to use all the other services SWIFT has on offer.”
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