The Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures and the International Organization of Securities Commissions on Tuesday published a joint consultation proposing updates to their guidance on the resilience of central counterparties and to the 2015 Public Quantitative Disclosure standards.
The consultation, released by CPMI, hosted at the Bank for International Settlements, and IOSCO, implements proposals set out in the January 2025 BCBS-CPMI-IOSCO final report on transparency and responsiveness of centrally cleared initial margin. Comments are requested by 30 June 2026.
UPDATING RESILIENCE GUIDANCE
The proposed amendments would refresh existing CPMI-IOSCO guidance on CCP resilience, including expectations on how central counterparties calibrate and manage initial margin. Initial margin is the collateral collected from clearing members and their clients to cover potential future exposure on cleared positions.
In their announcement, the standard-setters said the consultation implements proposals from the January 2025 BCBS-CPMI-IOSCO final report on transparency and responsiveness of centrally cleared initial margin, itself the product of an international review triggered by episodes of market stress in recent years.
A particular focus is the extent to which margin models can amplify liquidity demands on market participants during periods of volatility. The March 2020 dash-for-cash episode and subsequent commodity market stress episodes have all fed into regulators' concerns about the pro-cyclicality of margin frameworks.
TOOLS FOR MEMBERS AND CLIENTS
The consultation states that CCPs should consider offering margin simulator tools to all clearing members and clients, in a step aimed at giving users a clearer view of how initial-margin requirements might evolve under different market conditions. Better tools would allow firms to plan liquidity buffers and funding needs more effectively.
The other main strand of the consultation targets the 2015 Public Quantitative Disclosure standards for central counterparties, the framework through which CCPs report data on their financial resources, credit exposures and margin models. The proposed amendments seek to enhance the usefulness of that information.
Stakeholders have until 30 June 2026 to submit comments on the joint consultation, which is likely to draw responses from CCPs themselves, clearing members, buy-side firms and industry associations. Responses will feed into the finalisation of the updated guidance and disclosure standards in due course.
Together, the two strands of the consultation form part of the wider international policy response to the resilience of the cleared derivatives ecosystem. For clearing members and their clients, the outcome will shape how initial-margin practices and disclosures evolve across the world's major central counterparties in the years ahead.
Central clearing sits at the heart of the post-crisis derivatives framework, with a range of standardised products now cleared through CCPs supervised by authorities in the major jurisdictions. Enhancements to resilience guidance and disclosure standards therefore have direct implications for how firms manage collateral, liquidity and risk across their cleared portfolios in normal times and in stress.
The BIS media release accompanying the consultation set out the scope and objectives of the proposals, alongside the timeline for comments. Together with the earlier BCBS-CPMI-IOSCO work on centrally cleared initial margin, the joint consultation forms part of a sustained international effort to strengthen the transparency and responsiveness of the initial-margin framework across cleared derivatives markets.