Giancarlo Statement on Basel Committee Agreement

June 20, 2019

Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman J. Christopher Giancarlo issued the following statement regarding the recommendation by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision to exclude initial margin from the leverage ratio.

“I am pleased that the Basel Committee has agreed on a targeted and limited revision of the leverage ratio to allow margin received from a client to offset the exposure amounts of client-cleared derivatives. The agreement addresses the current leverage ratio’s unfounded bias against cleared derivatives. Addressing this issue has been a bi-partisan concern at the CFTC first raised by former Chairman Tim Massad and echoed more recently by my fellow Commissioners and Commission staff. Once the Basel Committee publishes its standards, I urge prudential regulatory authorities to expeditiously implement them in their respective rules.”