Distributions - CSA Provision
ISDA 1995 English Law Credit Support Annex
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Paragraph 5(c)(i) is identical in the 1995 CSA and the 2016 VM CSA. It is only in Paragraph 5(c)(ii) that things start getting a bit funky.
This part simply requires the holder of credit support to manufacture income back to the poster of credit support — as long as doing so wouldn’t create in itself trigger a further Delivery Amount by the Transferor — thus precipitating a (short) game of operational ping-pong between the two parties’ back office teams.
How would that happen? All other things staying equal, it couldn’t: if the Transferee’s Exposure and the Value of the Transferor’s Credit Support Balance stayed the same as it was when variation margin was last called, the arrival of income on any part of that Credit Support Balance ought to be spirited back to the Transferor: as long as the Transferee was still holding it, the Transferee otherwise would become indebted for the value of that income to the Transferor.
But as we know, Exposures don’t just quietly sit there. If they did, there wouldn’t be any need for initial margin, and collecting even variation margin would be less fraught. So if the Transferee’s Exposure has increased, the arrival of that income might serve to fill a hole in the existing coverage, in which case, why pay it away only to ask for it back again? Similarly, the value of a pending but as-yet-unpaid income payment will be priced into the value of the securities generating it.[1] So even if the Exposure hasn’t changed in the mean time, the arrival of a coupon or dividend will reduce the Value of those securities on which it was paid, so — all other things being equal — the Transferee might expect to hang onto the Distribution.