The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) has launched netalytics, an online tool that enables member firms to quickly determine whether a particular transaction is eligible for netting.
Robert Pickel, executive director and CEO of ISDA, says: "Netalytics combines the power of technology with thorough legal research to ensure a consistent approach to netting across a firm's office network."
A joint venture with the derivative services affiliate of Allen & Overy, netalytics contains all ISDA netting opinions and relevant netting legislation and regulation. The tool distills netting eligibility decisions down to 13 key issues that have been standardised across over 35 jurisdictions and legal opinions. Colour-coded answers are provided for each of these issues, along with cross-referencing to the relevant sections of the actual netting opinion, legislation and/or regulation.
Netalytics also enables users to conduct cross-jurisdictional analysis, so answers to one or more of the 13 key issues can be compared across one or more jurisdictions.
The netalytics Web site will be regularly updated to reflect new netting opinions and updates commissioned by ISDA, says the association.
According to Pickel, four ISDA primary members that have been using the service during its pre-launch testing have agreed to subscribe to the product.
In a separate announcement, ISDA has released a new working draft version of Financial products Markup Language (FpML) 3.0 to include equity derivatives.
FpML is the XML-based, freely licensed, e-commerce standard supporting the OTC trading of financial derivatives.