Statement of Commissioner Mark Wetjen on the DMO Made Available to Trade Process Roundtable

July 15, 2015

The Division of Market Oversight (“DMO”) will hold a roundtable today to discuss the “Made Available to Trade” (“MAT”) process. I continue to support ways to improve swaps trading and liquidity on swap execution facilities (“SEFs”), as I believe was the intent behind the Dodd-Frank Act and our SEF rules.

The original intent of the Commission’s MAT process was to let the facilities decide.  In practice, a single SEF could propose, based on its own commercial interests, what the Commission will review as a proposed mandate; also in practice, SEFs could choose not to propose, based on their own commercial interests, what the Commission will not review as a proposed mandate.  As time has passed, and as we have heard from industry and participants, I have come to believe that this is not the best approach to make policy determinations for the entire swaps market.   And as I have previously stated, I believe that the MAT process could be improved by a more orderly Commission-initiated determination, including a traditional comment period process.

I commend DMO staff and the Commission for holding this important dialogue as to how the MAT process should work going forward.   I look forward to hearing the ideas from the participants during the roundtable, including domestic and foreign regulators, academics, and industry, as to their thoughts on the process and potential improvements.

Last Updated: July 15, 2015