News
BarCap rebuts Buffet’s warning on derivatives
LONDON -- Robert Diamond, chief executive of Barclays Capital last week hit back at comments made by US investor Warren Buffett, who said earlier in the week that derivatives were "weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that, while now latent, are…
Tech briefs
4Cast adds search facilities
Vol surge expected from east Europe
WARSAW -- Political events in countries slated to join the European Union and the euro are set to trigger a wave of FX volatility in emerging European countries, market participants told FX Week .
Third-party CLS business comes under the spotlight in New York this week
NEW YORK -- The CLS (Continuous Linked Settlement) Group hosts a seminar in New York this Wednesday (March 12) to offer information on linking up third parties to its new forex settlement service.
Zar Amrolia quits Goldman
LONDON -- Former global head of FX sales at Goldman Sachs, Zar Amrolia, has left the bank after a series of job changes divested him of some of his forex responsibilities.
RBS FiXes benchmarks with EBS
LONDON -- The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has gone live with a new benchmark engine for spot and forwards FX rates, called RBSFiX.
Trading places
BTM names London treasurer
SG reorganises forex sales
LONDON -- SG will today (March 10) announce the reorganisation of its London FX and FX derivatives sales team into two client-focused units.
Emerging markets boost HSBC’s profits
LONDON -- A strong performance in emerging markets FX helped HSBC to its biggest-ever yearly forex profits, an official said last week. The bank made $1.17 billion from forex in 2002, up by 4% from $1.12 billion the year before. Based on banks’ financial…
BoJ management moves disappoint forex market
TOKYO -- There was an air of disappointment in the FX markets last week as the Bank of Japan revealed its new management line-up.
CMS Forex launches e-FX platform
NEW YORK -- New York-based broker Capital Market Services Forex (CMS) aims to add 1,000 retail FX clients in the next six months with a new online spot FX trading platform.
MMS relaunches technical pages
LONDON -- FX and fixed-income research and analysis firm MMS International is re-launching its FX Technical Pages.
Asian forex still untapped
SINAGPORE -- Five years on from the Asian financial crisis, FX trading opportunities in the region remain largely untapped, market participants told FX Week .
Rand reverses 2001 downtrend
JOHANNESBURG -- Interest rate yields, gold prices and a budget announcement powered the South African rand to a 20-month high against the dollar last week.
GCI adds online clients and volumes
BELIZE -- Online broker GCI Financial has added institutional FX customers to its mainly retail client base, a senior official at the firm in Belize told FX Week .
Local presence vital for LatAm FX success
BUENOS AIRES -- Banks in Europe may be centralising FX trading activity in one regional centre, but the opposite is required in Latin America, senior bankers told FX Week .
Job moves afoot in London as bonus season wraps up
LONDON -- As the bonus season draws to a close, the number of high-profile London FX professionals set to move jobs is about to soar, market participants and recruiters told FX Week .
SuperDerivatives adds Koram Bank
LONDON -- FX options pricing vendor SuperDerivatives has added Koram Bank of South Korea to its growing client list, the firm said last week.
Lehman bags Merrill’s Bernal to lead money manager sales
NEW YORK -- FX heavyweight Mike Bernal joined Lehman Brothers in New York last Monday (February 26). He joins in a new position managing all marketing efforts for money managers in foreign exchange, said a spokesperson at Lehman Brothers in New York.
Citi triumphs in Asian CLS
TAIWAN -- Citigroup appears to be winning the battle for third-party CLS business in Asia. The bank last week signed up its fourth client in Taiwan alone -- Bank of Kaohsiung, which now joins Union Bank of Taiwan and two other un-named Taiwanese banks as…
Bank One takes MarginMan
CHICAGO -- Foreign exchange traders at Chicago-based Bank One are now using MarginMan, a collateral-management software system from California-based Integral Development.
Tech briefs
State Treasury of Finland joins growing Trema client list
Trading places
Refco launches alternative investment division
Economy buoys UK banks’ forex vols
LONDON -- UK banks have managed to avoid the widespread year-on-year downturns in foreign exchange revenues suffered by their US counterparts, financial reports revealed last week.