Press Releases

Washington, D.C. - Today, Rep. Austin Scott (GA-8), Chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Commodity Exchanges, Energy, and Credit, held a hearing to review the G20 swap data reporting goals. Members heard from a panel of witnesses who shared the progress being made toward meeting the reporting and transparency goals set forth by the Group of Twenty (G20) enacted in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as well as the quality of existing swap data, fragmentation of data standards, and the compliance challenges facing market participants and end-users.

Following the financial crisis in 2008, leaders of the G20, a premier forum of 19 countries plus the European Union, issued a declaration to bring about greater regulatory transparency in the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives marketplace. To meet these goals, the U.S. enacted the Dodd-Frank Act, which brought comprehensive reforms and established the Swap Data Repositories (SDR) to collect and maintain swap data. Since its enactment, there has been significant progress in the reporting of OTC derivatives and several strides toward establishing market transparency. Overall progress remains uneven, specifically when it comes to using reported data for meaningful important oversight functions and the global aggregation of swap data.

“Market participants are being challenged with the task of swap data reporting, which is made more difficult when there is a lack of common data standards and reporting requirements around the world. This lack of standardization is widespread, obstructing the CFTC’s market surveillance efforts and complicating market participants compliance burdens, especially those of commodity end-users. Today, we were able to get a pulse on what progress has been made to establish a more standardized reporting system that accomplishes market transparency. There is still more work to be done, but I appreciate the CFTC for its work and for appearing before this subcommittee to discuss this issue. Thank you to all of our witnesses for your participation today, and we will continue to monitor this as it further develops,” said Subcommittee Chairman Austin Scott.

“We have come a long way from the implementation of Dodd-Frank in the way of data collection. Today we followed up on the fact that the data collection needs to be standardized for the CFTC to do its job effectively. The amount of data being collected is massive and without action will continue to be inefficient and nearly unusable. We were able to hear testimony from every part of the data collection process and be sure that every participant was heard and had its concerns addressed. CFTC updated the subcommittee on the steps it has taken and will take to work toward standardization which will lead to greater market transparency. I appreciate the hard work of the CFTC and look forward to following up with them as they make progress on this matter,” said Ranking Member David Scott (D-GA).

“At the start of my chairmanship, I said the committee would examine the progress the CFTC has made in collecting and using the tremendous volume of data required by Dodd-Frank. Today, we were able to dive deeper into this important topic and hear how the Commission is utilizing this new data it is demanding. Good data reporting is critical for effective market surveillance, but the requirements come at a cost to market participants. We must make sure the data collected is usable by regulators and limited in scope to that which is truly necessary for the job. We will continue to review this effort by the CFTC, so that data reporting rules are effective and beneficial to the market,” said Agriculture Committee Chairman K. Michael Conaway.