The title of the lead-off panel on Monday at the Sefcon conference, a Wall Street gathering devoted to the relatively obscure world of the swap execution facility, asked a question that most people outside the financial industry would appreciate: “What is a S.E.F. and what is it good for?”
The term S.E.F. did not even exist until last year, when it was born out of the Dodd-Frank financial regulatory overhaul. The law shook up the unregulated $600 trillion derivatives market, requiring the creation of swap execution facilities, or marketplaces where derivatives can openly trade.
“As we sit here today, we are undoubtedly in the cusp of enormous changes,” said J. Christopher Giancarlo, the chairman of Sefcon and an executive vice president at the GFI Group, which plans to register as a swap execution facility.
