IAWG Reports Progress on Treasury Market Regulations

The Inter-Agency Working Group for Treasury Market Surveillance ("IAWG") reported progress on efforts to ensure that the Treasury market "remains the deepest and most liquid market in the world and a central component of the financial system." IAWG members include Treasury, the Federal Reserve Board, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the SEC and the CFTC.

In its Report, the IAWG said that its efforts are generally focused on increasing the resilience of market intermediation, improving data quality and availability, examining expanded central clearing, providing trading venue oversight and assessing the impact of leverage and fund liquidity management.

The IAWG said that during the past year, member institutions have:

• implemented a Treasury buyback program to begin in 2024;
• required firms "significantly involved" in proprietary trading of Treasury securities to register with FINRA and report to TRACE;
• approved data release of secondary market transactions in on-the-run Treasury securities;
• provided more "granular" information on money market funds activities in the Treasury repo markets via SEC Form N-MFP amendments;
• allowed for increased monitoring of liquidity funds activity by amending SEC Form PF;
• implemented reporting requirements on securities lending transactions; and
• expanded cross-margining between central counterparties.