News
IMF's policy advisory chair resigns
ROME - International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) chairman Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa has tendered his resignation from chairmanship of the International Monetary Fund's policy advisory committee.
CBA reshuffles forex
SYDNEY - The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has made two key hires for its foreign exchange trading team in Sydney and has restructured its global sales group.
Czech forex volumes double in six months
PRAGUE - The credit crisis led to a sharp rise in Czech koruna forwards and foreign exchange swaps volumes in April, according to statistics released last week.
Saxo in $18.8m acquisition
SYDNEY - Saxo Bank is expanding its footprint in the Asia-Pacific region, with plans to acquire a 35% stake in Sydney-based broker Tricom.
UniCredit hires Craven to drive Asia expansion
HONG KONG - UniCredit has hired Joe Craven to head the bank's fixed-income, currencies and commodities (FICC) sales and trading business in Asia.
Credit Suisse names global head of forex
NEW YORK - Credit Suisse has made Steve Yanez head of its global foreign exchange business in New York as of May 1.
FX a highlight in tough Q1
FRANKFURT & STOCKHOLM - Foreign exchange revenues continue to provide a bright spot in European banks' gloomy quarterly results, as the credit-related losses roll on for market players.
Bawag Bank licenses GFI's Fenics FX
PRAGUE - The Czech Republic's Bawag Bank has taken a three-year licence for pricing and risk management software Fenics FX, to price foreign exchange.
Merrill steals two traders from BoA
NEW YORK & LONDON - Merrill Lynch has hired David Catalan and Lee Cantor, two former currency options traders at Bank of America (BoA) in New York.
GCC currency pairs live on ACM
GENEVA - Six new Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) currency pairs are now available to traders on Geneva-based online currency trading platform AC Markets (ACM).
Eurobase enhances limit order support
LONDON - London-based trading technology vendor Eurobase has expanded the foreign exchange limit order processing in its Siena e-Trading system to include more order capture and processing support for non-deliverable forwards, FX spot, outright and swaps.
Exchange-traded forex volumes up 41% in April
CHICAGO & NEW YORK - CME Group foreign exchange volume averaged 613,000 contracts a day for the month of April, up 41% on the same month last year. Average daily volumes for FX contracts in the three-month period ending April were also the highest…
Short volatility strategies best earners in April
LONDON - A short volatility strategy would have gained currency managers the highest returns in April, according to strategy research carried out by ABN Amro.
Canada's Toronto Dominion goes live with Digitec D-3 pricing engine
HAMBURG & TORONTO - Toronto Dominion (TD) is set to use Digitec's D-3 pricing engine to calculate foreign exchange forward prices, the bank said.
New governor overhauls South Korea's FSS
SEOUL - Kim Jong Chang, the new governor of South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), has initiated a shake-up of the financial regulator aimed at cutting bureaucracy, streamlining operations and attracting talent from the private sector.
Credit Suisse and Currenex switch on to Fidessa
LONDON - Buy-side technology provider Fidessa LatentZero is set to add interfaces to Credit Suisse, Currenex and Dublin-based foreign exchange broker Baxter-FX to its Minerva OEMS (order and execution management system) by the third quarter.
RBI releases details of rupee futures plans
MUMBAI - The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended a single dollar-rupee contract of $1,000 for the introduction of exchange-traded futures into the country.
HSBC expands single-bank platform's reach
LONDON - HSBC is expanding its foreign exchange presence in southern and eastern Europe and the Middle East by rolling out its single-bank platform HSBCnet FX and MM Trading locally.
Systematic managers profit from volatile March
STAMFORD, CT - Rules-based currency managers outperformed their discretionary peers in March, amid volatility at levels not seen since the bailout of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) in 1998.
BarCap offers retail white-label service
LONDON - Barclays Capital is breaking into the mass and private wealth management markets for foreign exchange with the launch of a white-label margin FX trading service called Barx White Label for Private Investors.
Tide of writedowns rolls on for banks
NEW YORK, LONDON & ZURICH - Foreign exchange results continue to provide much-needed good news for investment banks, as major players announced a fresh wave of billion-dollar credit-related writedowns last week.
Icap and Korea Money Broker form alliance
LONDON & SEOUL - Icap and Korea Money Brokerage Corp, announced on April 24 that they have formed a strategic alliance to further develop electronic spot foreign exchange trading in Korea.