# Instruments and Participants

Over the past forty years, the market for rates instruments used to support rate profile optimization has grown to over $464 trillion (Source: [BIS, May 2020](https://stats.bis.org/statx/srs/table/d7?f=pdf) ) and spans an array of instruments including:

* Fixed for floating rate interest rate swaps (“vanilla swaps”)
* Fixed for fixed rate (eg basis swaps)
* Interest only and principal only swaps
* Overnight interest swaps
* Contracts for difference and maturity swaps
* Structured products based on underlying cash flows (eg strips, etc)
* Caps, floors, collars and other agreements limiting the extent to which market rate changes can impact a borrowing relationship

The participants in these markets include:

* Corporate treasury desks and funding desks
* Institutional investors and asset managers
* Speculators and proprietary trading functions
* Brokers and other market makers
* Liquidity management functions of banks and other large financial institutions
* Risk management functions
* Insurance companies