Equivalent

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Warning: metaphysical area approaching. Approach stacked turtles with care.

AKA fungible. When you you have been given something — credit support, for very good example — which at some point you’ll have to give back. Now, when it comes to return it, dilemma. You’ve been mucking around with it. Hey — you got it by title transfer, so it was yours to muck around with wasn't it? Or, hey, ok so they pledged it to you, but you had you know, a right of rehypothecation, so you were allowed to muck around with it.<ref>Or, just as commonly and more innocuously, you held it in a dematerialised omnibus custody account, with fungible assets owned by other customers, and never did anything with it, but you still can’t tell whose bit is whose.

In any case, you want to hand over something that is identical to, but isn’t exactly the something that you were given. But it is exactly the same.

Seeing as, in the case of dematerialised securities held in a clearing system (in other words all transferable securities) this is a rather arid ontological distinction at the best of times, but it is one must firmly in the front of one’s mind when considering fundamental tools of our trade — close-out netting, stock lending, rehypothecation (anything that involves a title transfer collateral arrangement really) — lest the whole intellectual superstructure of modern credit risk mitigation should collapse before your eyes.


See also