Template:M summ Credit Derivatives Buyer and Seller

Buyer

It is deliciously elliptical, and classic carry-on from ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ to define a term in a way that is not only itself an embedded definition, but also one that categorically tells you less about the term than the original definier.

“Buyer” is a useful label in itself. It doesn’t really need defining. We surmise that this “Buyer” must be the person buying credit protection. Right? And so it is.

Now it is also true that the Buyer also happens to be the Fixed Rate Payer, in that it pays a pre-agreed, fixed premium — sorry, sorry, “Fixed Amount” — for the credit protection it buys — but that takes us one step further removed from what is going on. We will need to travel as far as Section 12.6 of the 2014 ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions to find out what the “Fixed Rate Payer” even means. Don’t hold your breath: it is simply the party specified as such in the Confirmation.