Republication of Proposed Amendments to Dealer Member Rules and Form 1 regarding the securities concentration test and designated rating organizations

IIROC is republishing for comment revisions to the previously published proposed amendments to its Dealer Member Rules (DMRs) and Form 1 (collectively, the Proposed Amendments). The Proposed Amendments  are designed to bring debt securities with a normal margin rate of 10% or less (debt securities margined at <=10%) into the existing securities concentration test, and also update the use of credit ratings, and references to credit rating agencies, in the DMRs and Form 1.

We developed the Proposed Amendments to address issues raised in the public comment letters that we received in response to IIROC Notice 18-0153, published on August 9, 2018 (2018 proposed amendments).

The Proposed Amendments retain the same fundamental framework for introducing debt securities margined at <=10% into Schedule 9 (concentration of securities), which is based on a designated rating organization (DRO) risk-weighting methodology. The primary differences between the Proposed Amendments and the 2018 proposed amendments relate to changes that recalibrate the DRO risk-weighting adjustment factors and other changes that should reduce operational complexity and related costs.