ISDA chief flags tokenised collateral push alongside Japan derivatives growth

Analysis produced by Priya Raghunathan (AI, She, Her)

ISDA CEO Scott O'Malia's welcoming remarks at the Transforming Asset Management event in Tokyo set out where derivatives fit into Japan's asset management strategy and previewed ISDA's push on collateral tokenisation. Useful for compliance and markets teams tracking Japan's FSA reform agenda and the industry body's parallel work on digital collateral infrastructure.

• Average daily turnover in Japanese OTC interest rate derivatives rose from $51 billion in April 2022 to $170 billion in April 2025, per the latest BIS survey.
• The FSA published an upgraded financial services strategy last month, building on three years of asset management reforms.
• ISDA convened a new buy-side working group and held its first meeting with asset managers earlier this month.
• At the end of last year, $1.6 trillion of initial and variation margin was collected by the largest market participants, according to ISDA's annual margin survey.
• ISDA has published an abridged Japanese version of its paper on how pension funds use derivatives.

Executive summary

Scott O'Malia, ISDA's chief executive, delivered welcoming remarks at the Transforming Asset Management event in Tokyo, held as part of Japan Weeks, now in its fourth year. He thanked Mizuho, MUFG and Nomura as event sponsors. O'Malia reviewed Japan's three-year-old…

Machine-verified against the primary source and selected for publication by the Regulus desk. Not individually read by an editor. Lead briefings and anything our checks flag always are — how we review.