View source for Template:Csa base currency capsule

Two interesting (lack of) design points here: Firstly, the fallback for the {{{{{1}}}prov|Base Currency}} is specified ''in the Paragraph {{{{{1}}}prov|11}} election schedule'' and not the pre-printed definition of {{{{{1}}}prov|Base Currency}} inside the {{{1}}} itself. The election schedule is the bit you amend, so by the lights of the Document Design Subcommittee of {{icds}}, you might expect your negotiated election to say: The {{{{{1}}}prov|Base Currency}} is [[United States dollars]] unless specified here: [[Pounds sterling]].

This, it is submitted, would confuse someone not expecting it. Especially someone in a panic, who has just been sent a bad photocopy of a heavily amended fifteen-year-old ISDA and CSA of a counterparty whose credit is plummeting and told to quickly figure out how to close out this blessed agreement, with the head of risk breathes down her neck. Why, she will wonder, didn’t it just say, “'''{{{{{1}}}prov|Base Currency}}''': [[Pounds sterling]]?”

Why indeed.

Point two is that, unlike the {{1992ma}} whose publication it quickly followed, the {{csa}} does at least think about a fallback {{{{{1}}}prov|Base Currency}} for those who have forgotten to specify one. But the fallback it chooses, for an English law agreement, is [[US dollars]]. The one demographic ''least'' likely to be trading under an [[English law]] {{isdama}} are those whose home currency is [[USD]]. 

Lastly, {{isda}} has taken advantage of none of the many redrafting opportunities it has had since 1994 to correct either of these irritations. The {{vmcsa}} and the {{nyvmcsa}} both take the same approach.