ISDA Amend is a joint service provided by Markit and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. With ISDA Amend, swap dealers and their clients can amend and share multiple ISDA master agreements with a single online tool, ensuring compliance with new Dodd-Frank business conduct rules in three easy steps.

The ISDA Amend tool, built on the existing Markit Counterparty Manager (MCPM), also enables dealers and their clients to centrally manage Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) documentation requirements as well as control and track counterparty access at the fund and account level.

And for the buy-side, it’s a free service.

Buy-side participants must be prepared to provide information to comply with Dodd-Frank rulemakings OR risk a halt to trading.

More Rules to Come

Participants should be mindful that beyond the focus of near-term requirements, more rules are on the way that will require preparation, including:

Margin for uncleared swaps

Swap documentation

Portfolio reconciliation, compression and dispute resolution

The ISDA-Markit Dodd-Frank Implementation page is on isda.org. In order to facilitate implementation of Dodd-Frank rulemakings, ISDA launched a page on their website to cover all presentations, documentation, audio playback related to this protocol.

ISDA Amend is designed to provide an efficient means for swap dealers and counterparties to amend Protocol Covered Agreements through the exchange of protocol questionnaires.

Unlike previous ISDA protocols where amendments were effected solely with delivery of an adherence letter by each party to the underlying document to be amended (i.e. a master agreement), this protocol will include additional bilateral delivery requirements in order to apply amendments described in the protocol schedules.

To facilitate these additional bilateral delivery requirements, ISDA and Markit developed a technology-based solution as part of the Markit Counterparty Manager that will automate the information-gathering process and provide sharing of submitted data and documents to permissioned counterparties.