Democratic Underground - NY Fed calls derivatives meeting

Newspaper reports concern that financial services firms don't appreciate credit derivatives risks.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/25/markets/derivatives_meeting/

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Federal Reserve Bank of New York has called a meeting with certain Wall Street firms to discuss the credit derivatives markets, The New York Times reported.

The meeting, set for Sept. 15, comes three months after global stock and bond markets were hit by concerns that banks had been caught up in the risk associated with the credit derivatives market. While a downgrade of General Motors debt originally sparked convulsions in the markets, the concerns were later found to be overblown.

But the scare did make the industry realize there needs to be more clarity for participants in the credit derivatives market regarding associated risks. Credit derivatives are linked to the probability of a company paying its debts, and it's a booming business with $8.4 trillion outstanding contracts at the end of 2004, up dramatically from $919 billion three years earlier, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

A July report by the Counterparty Risk Management Group focused on the sharp growth in the credit derivatives market and stated that the financial services industry "has very limited experience with settling large numbers of transactions following a credit event" such as a corporate default or bankruptcy.

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