Initial margin
Initial margin and variation marginMargin comes in two forms.
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Also known, to ISDAphiles, ninjas and the men and women of ISDA’s crack drafting squad™ as “Independent Amount” and to aggressive predictive text engines as “I’m”, initial margin is the amount of collateral a broker requires from its counterparty up front, notwithstanding any change in the mark-to-market value of the transaction. So initial margin is a precaution against potential future indebtedness, should it happen, not current indebtedness. Current indebtedness is covered by variation margin.
Therefore, where surrendered in cash directly to the lender/counterparty — i.e., not by way of client money or anything like that[1] — initial margin creates negative indebtedness. In other words, the holder of initial margin is indebted to the provider of it. A counter-intuitive result to be sure; and part of the reason that, generally, regulatory initial margin is required to be posted in the form of securities or other custodial assets, and to a third party custodian, to whom (in theory) neither party has any credit exposure.
Stock lending
Another example of this counter-intuitive effect is in the stock loan market, where the haircut on the collateral leg is effectively initial margin, and since the Borrower title-transfers (say) 105% of the value of the 2010 GMSLA to the Lender, in fact the Lender is indebted to the Borrower and not the other way around. Hence the Pledge GMSLA of 2018, to solve this exact problem for bank counterparties’ LRD calculations.
Compare and contrast
Compare, by way of contrast, variation margin.
See also
- Margin call
- Independent Amount, the 1995 CSA and the CSA Anatomy generally
- Pledge GMSLA
- EMIR, and in particular uncleared derivatives margin
References
- ↑ Though there it creates indebtedness from the bank that holds the cash, of course.