Microscope on US seg fund rules

US segregated fund regulations may have outlived their usefulness, market participants said last week. The rules came under scrutiny last Wednesday during a meeting of the newly re-organised Global Markets Advisory Committee (GMAC) in Washington.

At issue for several members of the committee, which is run as an advisory group to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), is whether segregated and secured accounts in the US are still needed in an increasingly international marketplace. The long-standing CFTC regulation requires secured amounts for transactions of foreign futures and options to remain separate from segregated funds. This was designed to prevent the draining of funds available to...