News
Senior changes at Citi and Credit Suisse
ZURICH & LONDON - Credit Suisse and Citi have made senior management changes in foreign exchange in Zurich and London, respectively.
New roadmap standardises messaging
GLOBAL - A group of financial market messaging organisations released details of an investment roadmap designed to standardise messaging use across the industry earlier this month.
ASP FFastFill to add forex support
LONDON - Application service provider (ASP) FFastfill expects to give its trading platform users expanded multi-asset strategies with the introduction of foreign exchange trading support within a few weeks, say vendor officials.
FSS suspends State St FX in South Korea
SEOUL - South Korea's financial regulator has suspended the FX business of State Street's Seoul branch for a month, following the discovery of violations to FX regulations.
US lets China off the hook
WASHINGTON, DC - The US Treasury has cleared China of manipulating its currency to gain unfair trade advantages against the US.
TD in Asia hub shake-up
SINGAPORE, SYDNEY & TORONTO - Toronto Dominion Securities has relocated its Asia foreign exchange and rates trading hub from Sydney to Singapore, in a move to boost its coverage of the emerging markets.
BBA considers changes to calculation of Libor
LONDON - Uncertainty over future methods of calculating Libor is causing volatility in dollar money markets.
Westpac/St George biggest bank in Oz
The proposed merger of St George and Westpac will create Australia's largest bank by market capitalisation, at approximately AUD$66 billion on a pro-forma basis.
Banks at odds over FX flows outlook
LONDON & PARIS - Major banks are at odds as to whether high foreign exchange volumes seen during the first quarter will continue into the rest of 2008.
More work needed on settlement risk
BASEL - Central banks are calling for more action to eliminate foreign exchange settlement risk, despite significant progress over recent years.
Asia's CMI prepared for crisis
MADRID - East Asian finance ministers agreed last week (May 5) to create a currency swap scheme of $80 billion in preparation for the possibility of a regional financial crisis.
StanChart moves Africa FX team to Dubai hub
LONDON & DUBAI - Standard Chartered is moving its offshore African foreign exchange trading desk from London to Dubai, as it continues to build operations in the Middle East.
Bear Stearns gets the axe
LONDON AND NEW YORK - JP Morgan has taken a hatchet to Bear Stearns' foreign exchange business in London and New York, with 62 of 73 positions set to be put on notice, according to a senior Bear Stearns official.
BoA names global sales head
SINGAPORE & NEW YORK - Bank of America (BoA) has appointed a new global head of currency sales, over a month after the announced departure of former foreign exchange sales chief Bob Gotelli.
JP Morgan chases commodities in Asia
HONG KONG & SINGAPORE - JP Morgan has hired Oral Dawe from rival Goldman Sachs as its chief executive of Asia-Pacific commodities. Dawe was previously co-head of commodities for Asia alongside Allan Marson at Goldman Sachs. Marson is now the sole head of…
UBS removes US mortgages from VaR
ZURICH - UBS has announced a change to its risk measurement techniques: exposures to US mortgages are no longer included in its daily calculations of value at risk (VaR).
BOC acts to curb RMB speculative buying
HONG KONG - Bank of China, the only clearing bank for Chinese renminbi foreign exchange transactions in Hong Kong, raised the cost of converting the Hong Kong dollar to renminbi last Wednesday (May 7).
FXCM posts $62m
FXCM posted $62.12 million in revenues and a net quarterly EBITA of $25 million in first-quarter results ending March 31.
Quick rolls out new Icap data
TOKYO - Japanese financial information vendor Quick, the country's dominant domestic provider, is adding a suite of new currency datasets and services from interdealer broker Icap to its products.
Euro threat remains, says UK's House of Lords
LONDON - The euro has managed to avoid an initial quick collapse predicted by many, but the threat has not yet passed, according to the UK's House of Lords.
CNY: No clear reason for NDF retreat
SINGAPORE - Mispricing seen in the Chinese renminbi non-deliverable forwards (NDF) market in recent weeks will be short-lived, say analysts.
FX has record Q1 at writedown-hit UBS
ZURICH & LONDON - High volatility drove a record quarter for UBS's foreign exchange business, but could only partially offset the effects of $19 billion-worth of US mortgage- and structured credit-related losses in its fixed-income, currencies and…
SEC cracks down on Ponzi scheme
WASHINGTON, DC - The Securities and Exchange Commission is cracking down on an alleged $27.9 million Ponzi scheme involving foreign exchange trading firm Gold-Quest International (GQI).