Infrastructure
Bank of England revises forex guidelines
LONDON – The Bank of England last week introduced its updated code on good market practice in foreign exchange, changing its format and making amendments to its content.
Lamont to head money transfer association
LONDON – The UK Chancellor who presided over 'Black Wednesday' in 1992 when Britain crashed out of the ERM is to head an association of money transfer businesses.
EBS enhances market data offering
LONDON & New York – FX platform EBS has enhanced its spot capabilities with an additional market data offering.
PBoC gives OTC foreign exchange go-ahead
BEIJING/SHANGHAI – The People's Bank of China (PBoC) opened up the country's spot FX market to over-the-counter trades last week, and introduced 13 market-makers to provide liquidity in the renminbi.
StanChart builds in Asia
SHANGHAI & HONG KONG – Standard Chartered has hired Fu Qing, to head FX trading in Shanghai.
Lesson from Refco: keep it transparent
Yes, this is the second editorial in a row that I have written about Refco, but I make no apology for it. There are too many important lessons to be learned from the collapse for the industry to be able to move on as if nothing had happened.
Eurex confirms US partner search
CHICAGO – Swiss-German exchange Eurex has confirmed it is in dialogue with numerous rival US-based exchanges about forming a partnership to aid its ailing US business.
RBC takes on Risque
NEW YORK – Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is to implement Risque, a risk management tool from Sophis, a cross-asset front- to back-office solutions vendor.
No votes lead to euro volatility
LONDON – The ‘no’ votes on the EU constitution referendums in France and the Netherlands led to unexpected volatility in the currency markets at the start of the month, with the highest volumes ever seen on some platforms.
Australia eases regulations
SYDNEY – Australia eased FX regulations to allow easier domestic foreign exchange business.
Bloomberg and Reuters in, Centradia out
NEW YORK AND LONDON – February proved to be a month of arrivals and departures, with multi-bank portal Centradia ceasing to exist and Bloomberg and Reuters announcing their intention to target the buy side.
Post trade flavour of the month
LONDON AND ZURICH – Post trade services were the flavour of the month in October with both Reuters and UBS getting in on the action.
Citi shuts down Nordic offices
SCANDINAVIA – FX Week revealed Citigroup was to close FX sales operations in the Nordic region with branches in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm and Oslo to be shut.
CLS targets buy-side build-up
NEW YORK AND ZURICH – July saw CLS looking to expand into non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) and OTC options – a move that would pave the way for far greater buy-side participation on the settlement system.
Banks boost online options offerings
LONDON AND NEW YORK – Banks were busy building up their online capabilities in December with a number of players seeking to move emerging markets options online.
News in brief
CLS to cut prices
Deutsche boosts prime brokerage
LONDON – Deutsche Bank upped the ante for prime brokerage providers by extending its offering with the introduction of options, non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) and increased processing capabilities.
Preparing for Korean won under-performance in 2006
Standard Chartered’s economics and FX strategy team suggest ways to position for a weaker Korean won in 2006
Bloomberg on the Wire
NEW YORK – Bloomberg is providing straight-through pro-cessing of swaps by linking its multi-dealer swaps trading platform to SwapsWire, an industry-backed electronic processing platform for over-the-counter derivatives.
Enigma – a cracking good model
Pete Eggleston, head of quant solutions at the Royal Bank of Scotland, financial markets, in London, discusses systematic trading of FX implied volatility using the 'Enigma' model
NYSE launches euro-linked shares
NEW YORK – The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) last week launched shares linked to the euro, demonstrating the growing demand for exchange-traded currency products.
Causeway selects Misys Treasury Plus
LONDON AND NEW YORK – Causeway Capital Management (Causeway) has chosen vendor Misys Banking Systems (Misys) for increased efficiencies in the confirmation and settlement processes for money market and other financial instrument transactions.
M&G to sign with FX Connect
LONDON – M&G is set to sign up with FX Connect in the early part of next year, as it looks to take its FX transactions onto an electronic basis.