WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Wall Street banks and Chicago commodity traders on Thursday will each try to sway the top U.S. derivatives regulator their way at a public hearing on whether new rules unduly favor one of the two rivals.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is drawing up rules for swaps, speculative financial instruments that were unregulated at the time of the 2007-09 financial crisis, and were widely blamed for exacerbating it.

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – A U.S. official will head a
worldwide group tasked with launching a unique identifier for
banks and other financial operators, to give regulators a better
view of their exposure and prevent the next crisis.

Matthew Reed, chief counsel at the U.S. Office of Financial
Research (OFR) would head the Regulatory Oversight Committee
(ROC), a new group that works under the auspices of the G20
group of the world’s biggest economies.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Twenty casually clad men crowd around a screen at derivatives broker GFI (GFIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), shouting prices at each other and to clients on the phone.

It is one of the noisiest parts of a male-dominated trading floor where shoeshiners crouch in a corner, smells waft as caterers bring around food, and one man gets a back massage at his desk.

WASHINGTON, Jan 24 (Reuters) – Jill Sommers, a Republican,
said on Thursday she is stepping down as a commissioner of the
U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, leaving the main U.S.
derivatives regulator firmly in Democratic hands as it puts in
place the last building blocks of a Wall Street overhaul.

“I did not always agree with the direction of the agency,”
Sommers said in a letter to CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler.

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The top U.S. derivatives
regulator will listen to banks and others in a public hearing
this month to find out if its rules are unduly forcing clients
out of swaps markets.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which
regulates both swaps and futures, is finishing the last building
blocks of its part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street overhaul law,
meant to avoid a repeat of the financial crisis.

WASHINGTON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The top U.S. derivatives
regulator gave itself 45 more days to decide in a row between
two rival financial groups fighting over potentially lucrative
swaps reporting data.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said it
needed more time to consider “novel or complex issues” that have
come up as a result of new rules it has drawn up to enforce the
Dodd-Frank law that tightened financial regulations after the
financial crisis.

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) – A conflict over potentially
valuable derivative trading data heated up on Wednesday,
underlining how an overhaul of Wall Street after the financial
crisis is sparking acerbic competition battles.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which
performs back-office functions for investment banks, threatened
to sue the top U.S. derivatives regulator over how rival CME
Group Inc plans to handle the data.

WASHINGTON, Jan 10 (Reuters) – The top U.S. derivatives
regulator will listen to banks and exchanges in a public hearing
this month to find out if its rules are unduly forcing clients
out of swaps markets.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which
regulates both swaps and futures, is also considering a rule for
block trades that could accommodate some of the concerns aired
by the industry, a senior executive said.

LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Banks have won a victory in their battle to dilute tough rules on liquidity, but they will still have to find trillions of dollars to ensure their funds do not run out in a crisis.

Heavy lobbying by banks over the past two years has bought them time, but not freedom from requirements that they lock up big new cash buffers globally from 2015.

WASHINGTON, Jan 2 (Reuters) – Asian and European banks
registered as U.S. swap dealers this week, joining Wall Street
rivals in complying with new rules that aim to shed light on the
opaque $650 trillion derivatives market.

Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, Societe
Generale, BNP Paribas and Nomura
were among those listed in the registry of the National Futures
Association (NFA), a U.S. regulator.