Adds the term Currency Business Day. This is the default financial center of the currency. The currency business day is used when a tailor-made financial centre or daily calendar is not specified in the 2021 definitions or in the corresponding confirmation. Given that there will be no ISDA protocol for the transition from existing swaps documented under the 2006 definitions to the 2021 definitions, there is a risk that there will be economic differences between the swaps documented under the different sets of definitions (although in practice not all changes result in an economic difference), but this is expected to decrease over time, as older 2006 definition transactions mature and are replaced by new transactions documented in the 2021 definitions. As not all market participants will be able to immediately adopt the 2021 definitions, the 2006 definitions can still be used for some time – but ISDA does not intend to maintain or update the 20061 definitions from now on, and they are likely to become obsolete relatively quickly. It should be noted that as of 4 October 2021, all but one of the major CCPs (CCPs) had amended their regulatory frameworks to reflect the 2021 definitions, and the remaining CCPs are expected to follow later this year. On this basis, it may be wise for market participants for whom alignment between cleared and uncleared transactions is important to actively seek transition. ISDA confirmed that it would no longer update the 2006 ISDA definitions after the implementation date. Entities should therefore carefully consider whether it is appropriate to continue to include the provisions of the 2006 ISDA definitions in derivative transactions concluded after the transposition date. Businesses should use the pre-transposition date to make adjustments to the policies and procedures necessary to reflect the provisions of the 2021 definitions. Cash settlement methods are used to determine the amount of cash settlement to be paid by one party to another in certain interest rate derivative transactions if the parties are unable to agree on the amount of the cash settlement on the date of registration. Although definitions for 2006 will continue to be available after October 4, 2021, they will no longer be maintained and updated.

Market participants have therefore been advised by the International Swaps & Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) encourages the adoption of the 2021 definitions as soon as possible. As a result of these changes, the 2021 definitions now include seven cash settlement methods. Five of them are variants of the MMV or VR methods described above, and the other two methods are legacy methods that are essentially identical to the equivalent methods as defined in 2006. ISDA has published the following general comparison of the cash settlement provisions between the 2021 and 2006 definitions: See our summary of the most significant changes in the 2021 definitions. Terms that are not defined have the meaning given to them in the 2021 definitions, and all references to the sections refer to sections of the 2021 definitions. ISDA has waived a printed booklet for the 2021 definitions. Instead, 2021 definitions will be available on a new user platform with version control capabilities, eliminating the need for updates via additions. Since their publication, the 2006 ISDA definitions have been regularly updated with additions to align them with current market practices at the time of the facts and to reflect regulatory changes. The 2006 ISDA definitions are currently supplemented by more than 70 additions, which can make it a cumbersome source.

The 2021 General Book of Definitions will summarize the various additions in a single document. 1 It should be noted that ISDA has confirmed that an existing pipeline of additions to the 2006 definitions will be published after October 4, 2021, but ISDA does not intend to initiate further changes once they have been published. Operational provisions and most definitions are set out in the general ledger. As with the 2006 definitions, some standard choices and definitions have been defined in separate matrices: floating rate matrix, settlement matrix, currency/business day matrix, market value valuation matrix, and compound and average matrix. These are published and versioned separately from the general ledger. The triggers and fallbacks contained in the IBOR Fallback Supplement as well as the RFR-related supplements were transferred to the 2021 definitions with the following differences: The 2006 definitions were based on the publication of supplements to the original definitions as a means of updating their provisions over time, resulting in 86 published supplements....