RBI Update : Bilateral Netting of Qualified Financial Contracts – Amendments to Prudential Guidelines

It is clarified that:

1. the exemption for foreign exchange (except gold) contracts which have an original maturity of 14 calendar days or less shall be applicable to entities calculating the counterparty credit risk under Original Exposure Method without taking the benefit of bilateral netting. Accordingly, the exemption would be applicable only to Regional Rural Banks, Local Area Banks and Co-operative Banks, where the bank has not adopted the bilateral netting framework. For other entities, the exemption shall stand withdrawn.
2. ‘sold options’, provided the entire premium / fee or any other form of income is received / realised, can be excluded only when such ‘sold options’ are outside the netting and margin agreements.
3. For Credit Default Swaps where the bank is the protection seller and that are outside netting and margin agreements, the exposure may be capped to the amount of premium unpaid. Banks have the option to remove such credit derivatives from their legal netting sets in order to apply the cap.