With the Dodd-Frank Act's July deadline quickly approaching, regulators for the first time acknowledged officially that a delay would be necessary to implement new rules impacting corporate end users of swaps when they queried members of a 10-person panel on May 3 about the best implementation approach.

            Early this year, the regulators were focused on how to complete implementation of end-user requirements by the end of 2011.  However, the one-year anniversary of Dodd-Frank on July 21, the deadline by which its rules were slated to be completed, is just a few months away and there's still significant work to be done.

            Jiro Okochi, CEO of Reval, which provides technology to support derivatives transactions, said the regulators' questions to the panel were unsurprising, given the current timeframe. "Now we're being asked how we would phase this in and the right way [to do it]," Okochi said, adding, "It's the first time they've asked our opinions on how to do it."