Foreign exchange
Saxo in executive shake-up
COPENHAGEN - Christian Frahm, senior executive director and head of Europe, excluding UK and the Middle East, at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen, left the bank last month.
CIB boosts voice-trading tech
SHANGHAI - China Industrial Bank (CIB) has enhanced its voice-trading operations, adopting Orange Business Services Trading Solutions' dealing telephony.
Hotspot FXi revamp means faster trades
JERSEY CITY, NJ - Electronic communications network (ECN) Hotspot FXi plans to implement a multiple-server matching engine architecture to replace its single matching engine in January 2008, to improve the platform's performance.
Credit Suisse e-trades exotics
LONDON - Credit Suisse has enabled trading in structured exotic foreign exchange options on its proprietary electronic trading platform, Merlin, with select institutional clients globally, the Swiss dealer said last week.
Wayward US forex brokers struck off the register
WASHINGTON, DC - The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has revoked the introducing broker registrations of Next Financial Services Unlimited and New World Trading, due to fraudulent FX activities.
Overlay launches EM currency fund
DUBLIN - Overlay Asset Management has launched a specialist fund to invest exclusively in emerging market currencies.
Forex cons caught red-handed
DETROIT - The Michigan Federal Court has ordered Millenium Trading Group and Worldwide Clearing of Florida, as well as Florida resident Cedric Stanton, to pay more than $10 million in sanctions.
Icap and CME post strong FX gains
CHICAGO & LONDON - Interdealer broker Icap and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) continue to report strong month-on-month gains in foreign exchange trading volume.
Icap strengthens grasp on emerging markets
LONDON - Interdealer broker Icap has expanded in emerging markets, signing Raiffeisen Zentralbank Oesterreich (RZB) onto EBS Prime, its professional foreign exchange prime-brokerage solution.
Lehman joins retail FX rush
NEW YORK - Lehman Brothers is entering the burgeoning retail foreign exchange market with the acquisition of a 9.9% share in online retail trading company FXCM, ending months of speculation regarding the deal.
Plain vanilla no longer flavour of the month
LONDON & NEW YORK - Foreign exchange staff working in plain vanilla trading and sales will need to look out for their jobs in 2008, as banks reduce hires, recruitment consultants tell FX Week .
StanChart names flow head
SINGAPORE - Standard Chartered has named its new global head of flow foreign exchange options trading, a year after Richard Leighton was promoted to London-based global head of FX from a role as global head of FX options.
Automated trading to make up 90% of futures by 2010
NEW YORK - Pit trading is fading fast. An estimated 50% of all futures markets transactions in 2007 occurred through automated trading strategies - including market-making and quantitative black-box trading activities - and this proportion will rise to…
Commerzbank loses sales chief
LONDON - Commerzbank has seen the departure of Hugues de la Marnierre, London-based global head of sales, amid a restructure at the bank.
Fincad launches in the UK
DUBLIN - Financial analytics software and service provider Fincad has expanded its international operations by establishing an EMEA headquarters in Dublin.
Volatility profits Icap
LONDON - High volatility in currency markets led to a 35% rise in first-half foreign exchange revenues at interdealer broker Icap, according to results released last week.
BGC departs retail FX
LONDON - Interdealer broker BGC Partners is exiting the retail foreign exchange market to focus on core interdealer broking business, a source has told FX Week .
Citi and Goldman break into retail FX
NEW YORK & COPENHAGEN - Citi and Goldman Sachs are breaking into the retail foreign exchange market by launching an online FX margin trading platform and buying a 10% stake in an online retail CFD company, respectively.
Icap follows new pricing model for EBS
LONDON - Interdealer broker Icap is introducing a volume-based pricing model for electronic spot broking system EBS, as it evolves to fit the changing landscape.
Former Fimat e-forex chief joins Hotspot FX
JERSEY CITY - Chris DeFilippo, former New York-based head of electronic foreign exchange at institutional brokerage firm Fimat is today (November 26) starting at electronic communications network (ECN) Hotspot FX.
Mifid spurs e-trading growth
LONDON - Best execution requirements under Mifid could boost growth in electronic foreign exchange volume, according to a keynote address at last week's FX Week Europe event.
New Swift solution aims for better processing
NEW YORK - Bloomberg is teaming up with industry messaging co-operative Swift to tackle the division between the front, middle and back offices when processing foreign exchange trades.
Retail sets the pace for future of forex
LONDON - The retail market is likely to set the standard for the future of foreign exchange, said panelists at the FX Week Europe conference last Tuesday.
StanChart introduces electronic NDF trading
LONDON - Standard Chartered began offering electronic trading in emerging market non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) over proprietary electronic platform Straight2Bank Web and through multi-bank platform FXall on November 13.