Foreign exchange
Saxo increases spot FX margins
COPENHAGEN - Saxo Bank increased spot foreign exchange margins for 11 currencies on Wednesday (March 19) as capital was pulled out of certain emerging market currencies.
Lehman Bros comes under fire in Asia
SINGAPORE - Attempts by Lehman Brothers to quash rumours that DBS Bank, Singapore's largest bank, had ceased trading with it last Monday (March 17) failed to reassure traders in Asia.
Nedbank signs up WSS
JOHANNESBURG - Nedbank Capital has begun deploying a real-time trade processing system, Wallstreet FX, to support developments in its forex and money markets operations.
Introducing ACI...
Firstly, thank you to FX Week for allowing ACI UK this monthly slot in their publication. We are pleased to have this additional method to communicate with the 13,000 global ACI members, as well as those involved in our industry who are not members of…
Top order changes at UBS
ZURICH & SINGAPORE - UBS has seen a reshuffle at the top of its FX business, after establishing a new FX trading unit at the end of January.
US banks give poor performance in Q1
NEW YORK - Strong results in foreign exchange failed to offset a first quarter blighted by continued credit market turmoil, with US investment banks reporting significant declines in fixed-income revenues last week.
Small US retail forex firms set to "suffer"
NEW YORK - New legislation passing through the US government is likely to consolidate the retail foreign exchange industry, as proposals to dramatically increase minimum adjusted net capital requirements squeeze small operators from the market.
US dollar plummets against the yen
LONDON - Despite USD/JPY hitting 12-year lows last Thursday, traders are expecting a further collapse of the US unit versus the yen.
Retail FX might go down, but it's not out
Last week's turbulence in the currency markets certainly gave those considering a strategy to enter the retail foreign exchange market pause for thought.
Citi reassesses forex options
LONDON - Citi has made three hires in foreign exchange options, under its new head of G-10 options trading, Nigel Khakoo, in London.
Debate on SWFs heats up
LONDON - Calls for greater transparency by sovereign wealth funds were matched by demands from the funds themselves for fair regulatory treatment, at last week's Sovereign Wealth Management conference in London.
Calyon makes Nutland head of Asia forex
LONDON - Steve Nutland, London-based global head of foreign exchange trading for spot, options and emerging markets at Calyon, will shortly become head of FX for Asia.
US dollar plummets against the yen
LONDON - Despite USD/JPY hitting 12-year lows last Thursday, traders are expecting a further collapse of the US unit versus the yen.
Platforms fight for electronic liquidity
Despite the seemingly relentless proliferation of trading platforms in the past few years, many in the industry still believe it's unlikely they will all survive.
Aegis ups algo capability for AthenaTrader 4.0
NEW YORK - Trading technology vendor Aegis Software has increased the number of algorithmic trading models available on the latest version of its execution system, AthenaTrader.
HotspotFX in white-label talks for retail offer
JERSEY CITY - HotspotFX is in talks with an undisclosed number of banks for the use of its retail electronic communications network (ECN) platform, HotspotFXr, following a global rollout of the platform at the beginning of this year.
FX supports profits at HSBC
LONDON - The global banking and markets business at HSBC reported pre-tax profits up 5% to $6.1 billion for 2007, despite severe disruption in the global credit markets.
Merrill Lynch reshuffles EMEA FICC
LONDON & NEW YORK - Merrill Lynch named David Gu sole head of Europe, Middle East and Africa fixed-income currencies and commodities (EMEA FICC) in London last week, after the resignation of co-head Dimitrios Psyllidis.
BNP names global options chief
LONDON & SINGAPORE - Simon Nursey has been appointed as BNP Paribas's global head of foreign exchange options trading, effective last Monday (March 3).
Eurobase Siena launches liquidity aggregation tool
LONDON - Eurobase Banking Solutions will offer a liquidity aggregation module later this month, in response to customer demand.
EBS's February volumes eclipse 2007 levels
Last month's average daily volume of spot FX traded on Icap's electronic spot broking platform EBS Spot increased 34% on February 2007, to $217.2 billion. The interdealer broker reported average daily spot FX trading was also up 32% for the year ending…
StanChart gets a FIX
Standard Chartered last week announced that it has developed a FIX application programming interface (API) to trade over its single-bank platform.
New options classes for latest Fenics release
LONDON - Seven new option classes are being added to the latest version of GFI Group's Fenics, an FX options pricing, risk management and trading tool.