The CFTC announced the full agenda for its upcoming Market Risk Advisory Committee ("MRAC") meeting. The meeting is scheduled to take place on April 2, 2015. The MRAC meeting will focus on issues related to the current risk management techniques employed by derivatives clearing organizations to ensure that appropriate measures are in place to address the potential default of a significant number of clearing members. Additionally, participants will discuss the evolving structure of the derivatives markets, particularly with respect to swap execution facilities. See: MRAC Meeting Agenda. Related

The SEC proposed rule amendments to Exchange Act Rule 15b9-1 to require broker-dealers trading in off-exchange venues to become members of a national securities association ( i.e., FINRA). According to the SEC, the amendments would enhance the regulatory oversight of active proprietary trading firms, such as high-frequency traders. Currently, Rule 15b9-1 exempts certain brokers-dealers from membership in FINRA if they (i) are members of a national securities exchange, (ii) carry no customer accounts, and (iii) each have annual gross incomes in which no more than $1,000 is derived from

CFTC Commissioner Sharon Y. Bowen spoke at the 17th Annual OpRisk North America conference. Her remarks concerned operational risks in the market and what stakeholders can do to address those risks. She also addressed the risk management policy requirements of CFTC Rule 23.600. Commissioner Bowen identified cybersecurity as an operational risk that her audience knew "only too well." She explained that, since trading has become electronic, financial firms now store massive amounts of data, which makes them targets for hackers. She stated that two primary types of actors are involved in

A correction to the comment period deadline for the CFTC's Position Limits for Derivatives and Aggregation of Position proposals was published in the Federal Register. The correction amends the closing date of the reopened comment period for the proposed rulemakings. In the original proposal, which was published on February 25, 2015, the closing date was scheduled to fall on a non-business day. The comment period will now close on March 30, 2015. See: 80 FR 15699. Related news: CFTC Reopens Comment Periods on Position Limits for Derivatives and the Aggregation of Positions (Fed. Reg.)(February

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York issued a preliminary staff paper, titled "Does Central Clearing Reduce Counterparty Risk in Realistic Financial Networks?" authored by Rodney Garratt and Peter Zimmerman. The paper examines the effect of introducing a central clearing counterparty ("CCP") on the expected net exposures of dealers, and also explores the effect of such introductions on the variance of these net exposures. The authors find that a CCP is unlikely to be beneficial when the link structure of the network relies on just a few key nodes. In large scale-free networks in particular, a