DTCC unveils enhanced CDS Kinetics platform for increased transparency into CDS market

By Pavithra R

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, has announced the launch of an enhanced DTCC CDS Kinetics platform to support the growing demand for more transparency into the credit default swaps (CDS) market within the over-the-counter derivatives space.

DTCC CDS Kinetics provides position data on credit default swaps sourced from DTCC’s Trade Information Warehouse (TIW), offering notional outstanding, net notional, and trading volume metrics on securities including single-name, index, and index tranche. TIW is a centralized infrastructure for reporting and asset servicing on approximately 98% of all credit derivative transactions outstanding worldwide.

Recognizing that credit default swaps are a critical data source for understanding market risk, the DTCC CDS Kinetics service has been enhanced to support increased analysis and understanding of the CDS market. The service, which previously featured point-in-time snapshots of credit default swaps data, has been enhanced to provide over a decade of historical and time-series data, a new user interface with graphical representations, and the ability to search for CDS instruments by a range of attributes including underlying reference entity, market type, market sector, and geographical region.

“The new DTCC CDS Kinetics platform provides unparalleled transparency into the credit default swaps market, offering unique insights on credit risk that will not only inform trading strategies, but will also help banks better prepare for potential market dislocations. Now more than ever, it’s critical for firms to begin drawing upon more robust and higher-quality data sources to heighten their risk preparedness and response, as well as their overall business resilience,” said Tim Lind, Managing Director of DTCC Data Services.

The DTCC CDS Kinetics platform will also be made available in DTCC’s API Marketplace, as part of a planned future platform update. The API “App Store” allows direct programmatic access to DTCC processing functionality and includes comprehensive documentation and training materials to help developers use the APIs.

“We worked closely with clients to develop the new API capability, which will allow users to leverage DTCC’s technology to suit their own business needs,” added Lind.