Nikki Mandow: Why is Judith Collins baking on derivatives?

Every government hails its legislative reform agenda. With this government we've seen guns, child poverty, payday loans, capital gains tax - well maybe not CGT.

But one of the most important pieces of legislation the government will pass this year will be one you'll never hear the Prime Minister boasting about. Or even mentioning.

It's not sexy and isn't a vote-winner. In fact, it's so dull that during the debate on the bill's first reading recently, National MP Judith Collins predicted it would get "no coverage whatsoever" in the media. And promised to do baking if it did.

As a piece of legislation, it certainly doesn't roll off the tongue. The Financial Markets (Derivatives Margin and Benchmarking) Reform Amendment Bill.

The FM(DM&B)RAB, otherwise known as the bill-that-most-of-us-have-never-heard-of, will bring New Zealand in line with financial markets reform internationally and, basically, stop part of our financial system tanking.

It might not sound sexy, but the bill has its origins in global financial collapse, large-scale market manipulation and the sort of sums of money you can't get your brain around.

It starts with the Global Financial Crisis, which highlighted risks inherent in the existing banking and financial systems, particularly around the use of derivatives - those complex financial contracts where parties agree to buy or sell certain instruments at a certain price on a certain date. Think, in this case, exchange rate or interest rate swaps.

So the GFC became the catalyst for a swathe of worldwide reform aimed at making derivatives trading less risky and more difficult to manipulate.

Eight years down the track it's New Zealand's turn. At its most basic, the bill will bring us into line with new international regulations around derivatives - and thereby improve the integrity of our financial system.

If it passes, not much will change. If it doesn't, New Zealand will find itself an international pariah. Thrown out of the sandpit. Our legislation around derivatives just won't be robust enough for other financial institutions to dare play with us.
Our banks won't be able to trade derivatives with their international counterparts, our big companies will have less capital to grow and fewer instruments to mitigate risk. And our interest rates could be much more volatile, producing a major impact on homeowners and businesses.

And this is huge. Just one example: the big four New Zealand banks are estimated to have a total exposure of $1.1 trillion either directly or through their clients to derivatives contracts affected by the recent international reforms. That's just with parties out of the European Union.

As Bell Gully derivatives lawyer David Craig says: "The bottom line is this is dry legislation. Outside a handful of derivatives lawyers it's unlikely to spur debate at cocktail parties. But if we look at the potential consequences if we don't pass it, it's pretty drastic."
National MP Andrew Bayly has the same message. "It's absolutely essential this bill is passed to ensure our financial institutions can continue to operate efficiently and effectively."

The bill is in two parts.

The first reforms our legislation so parties to a transaction have to hold adequate security in the form of a margin, in case a derivatives contract goes against them.

If this part isn't passed by September this year, banks will be in significant trouble in terms of continuing to trade derivatives internationally. Already some of their international transactions have to go through their parent companies because NZ has not yet got its legislation in place, but Australia has.

The second part brings New Zealand into line with European legislative change around financial benchmarks, particularly benchmark interest rates.

It sounds deadly dull, but the new rules come off the back of a massive bank scandal exposed in 2012 - the global manipulation of LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate.
Basically, banks were falsely inflating or deflating their interbank rates so as to profit from trades, or to give the impression that they were more creditworthy than they were.

As MIT professor of finance Andrew Lo put it at the time, "This dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets."

LIBOR still underpins $US260 trillion-worth of loans and derivatives, from variable rate mortgages to interest rate swaps, but is being phased out by the end of 2021.
New Zealand law has to change as EU law does.

Barring some extraordinary political last-minute brinkmanship, the bill will pass. No party has yet stuck its hand up to oppose it. Few MPs probably understand it.

It passed its first parliamentary reading in March and received a number of frighteningly technical submissions at select committee. It's now waiting to be reported back to the house by July 22.

Everyone hopes it will come into effect, at least before the September deadline.
In the meantime, Judith Collins has some baking to do.

- BusinessDesk