Template:Isda architecture
The ISDA Master Agreement is the basic framework which applies to anyone who touches down on planet ISDA. . There are three existing versions:
- the state-of-the-art 2002 ISDA;[1]
- the still-popular-with-traditionalists 1992 ISDA, and
- the all-but-retired-but-don’t-forget-there-are-still-soldiers-in-the-Burmese-jungle 1987 ISDA[2]
The ISDA Master Agreement is a pre-printed pdf. You don’t, despite the darkest fears of your internal audit department, ever edit this document. Ever. It’s generally a .pdf, so you can’t[3] but, in any weather, you don’t.[4] You just don’t. You sign it as it is and then execute an ...
... ISDA Schedule. This overlays the pre-printed master agreement. Here you specify Additional Termination Events, add economic variables, names, addresses, add Tax Representations and then, in Part 5, you are free to make any technical amendments your credit and legal chicken lickens want for the avoidance of doubt, and that you couldn't make because technical ineptitude and unerring market convention prevented you editing the preprinted master. That comprises your overarching ISDA Master Agreement, though you may also have a ...
...Credit support arrangement which is usually an annex to the ISDA Master Agreement. In order to document a specific Transaction you will need a...
... Confirmation is the thing that actually documents a specific swap Transaction, though there is sometimes an intermediate Master Confirmation Agreement which documents the generic terms for all, say equity derivative Transactions.
- ↑ There is no such thing as a 2008 ISDA. That was a joke on our part.
- ↑ Seriously: proceed with cuation with one of these. 1987 ISDAs don’t have a lot of safety features a modern derivatives counterparty relies on, so only for real specialists and weirdos. Think of it like flying a spitfire rather than a 737 Max. Um, okay, bad metaphor.
- ↑ I know you can, but you are forgetting about the general technical aptitude of your average ISDA negotiator who can’t figure out how to get goddamn tab stops to work.
- ↑ “But what if we did?” wails internal audit. How would you know? This is your chance to pull the exasperated Kermit face. It won’t help, of course, but you may feel better.