Made Available to Trade: CFTC Certifies Certain Interest Rate Swaps

The era of mandatory trading of interest rate swaps on swap execution facilities (SEFs) is imminent.  The CFTC announced yesterday that it has certified Javelin SEF LLC’s Made Available to Trade (MAT) submission.  This means that a number of U.S. dollar and Euro denominated benchmark swaps will become subject to the MAT provision thirty days after the certification.

As part of the OTC derivatives markets reforms adopted under Dodd-Frank, all derivatives that have been MAT’ed are required to trade on a SEF or designated contract market (DCM) starting on February 15, 2014.

The rule also applies to “package trades” that include a swap that is MAT. However CFTC Acting Chairman Mark Wetjen has directed the Commission’s Division of Market Oversight to hold a public roundtable to discuss execution and operational issues that could arise when transacting in package trades. 

Javelin was the first to MAT interest rate swaps, while Tradeweb Markets’ TW SEF was the first to MAT credit default swaps on October 29, 2013.  The CFTC is anticipated to finalize its determination on Tradeweb’s MAT submission by the end of January 2014.

To view the CFTC announcement regarding the Javelin MAT certification, please click here.