Business Glossary

traditionally, an exchange of one security for another to change the maturities of a bond portfolio or the quality of the issues in a stock or bond portfolio, or because investment objectives have shifted. Investors with bond portfolio losses often swap for other higher-yielding bonds to be able to increase the return on their portfolio and realize tax losses. Recent years have seen explosive growth in more complex currency swaps, used to link increasingly global capital markets, and in interestrate swaps, used to reduce risk by synthetically matching the duration of assets and liabilities of financial institutions as interest rates got higher and more volatile. In a simple currency swap (swaps can be done with varying degrees of complexity), two parties sell each other a currency with a commitment to re-exchange the principal amount at the maturity of the deal. Originally done to get around the problems of exchange controls, currency swaps are widely used to tap new capital markets, in effect to borrow funds irrespective of whether the borrower requires funds within that market. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) has been an active participant in currency swaps with U.S. corporations.

An interest-rate swap is an arrangement whereby two parties (called counterparties) enter into an agreement to exchange periodic interest payments. The dollar amount the counterparties pay each other is an agreed-upon periodic interest rate multiplied by some predetermined dollar principal, called the notational principal amount. No principal (no notational amount) is exchanged between parties to the transaction; only interest is exchanged. In its most common and simplest variation, one party agrees to pay the other a fixed rate of interest in exchange for a floating rate. The benefit of interest-rate swaps, which can be used to synthetically extend or shorten the duration characteristics of an asset or liability, is that direct changes in the contractual characteristics of the assets or the liabilities become matters affecting only administrative, legal, and investment banking costs.

contract in which two counter-parties agree to exchange interest payments of differing character based on an underlying notional principal amount that is never exchanged. There are three types of interest swaps: coupon swaps or exchange of fixed rate for floating rate instruments in the same currency; basis swaps or the exchange of floating rate for floating rate instruments in the same currency; and cross currency interest rate swaps involving the exchange of fixed rate instruments in one currency for floating rate in another.

Typically, a swap contract exchanges fixed rate obligations for a floating rate instrument in the same currency. In its simplest form, the two parties to an interest rate swap exchange their interest payment obligations (no principal changes hands) on two different kinds of debt instruments, one being a fixed interest rate, the other being a floating rate.

For example, the Student Loan Marketing Association (Sallie Mae) may want to swap rates with a mutual savings bank-a mutually beneficial transaction, as Sallie Mae, a highly rated institution because of its status as a federal agency, prefers floating rate to match short-term loans in its student loan portfolio. Sallie Mae can sell fixed rate debt at a relatively low cost, whereas the mutual savings bank prefers to match its long-term fixed rate mortgages with fixed rate funds.