News
BarCap expands options
LONDON -- Barclays Capital has hired two in FX options and two in FX structuring to join the bank in London this quarter. Three of the new dealers come from Citigroup.
HSBC takes Reuters for white-labelling
LONDON -- HSBC Group has chosen Reuters to develop a white-label FX trading platform the bank will then white-label to client banks and corporates.
ABN realigns risk advisory
LONDON -- ABN Amro has incorporated its FX analytics and risk advisory group into a new cross-product advisory service, the bank announced last week.
Firms line up to join FX standards group
LONDON -- The Treasury Workstation Integration Standards Team (Twist), an industry initiative set up to standardise integration between all FX systems, has doubled its membership to more than 50 firms in the past four months.
MMS enhances fixed-income service
LONDON -- FX and fixed-income research and analysis firm MMS International extended its technical analysis coverage of money market futures last week.
BoA management reorg
NEW YORK -- Bank of America has cut three management positions as part of an ongoing strategy to consolidate global FX trading and sales, a senior official at the bank in New York told FX Week .
War threat to Q1 FX profits
NEW YORK – The impact of the war in Iraq on FX will become clear this week, when the US commercial banks publish trading revenues for the first three months of the year.
Singapore dollar hit by SARS woes
SINGAPORE -- Speculation mounted last week that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) had intervened to protect the Sing dollar’s narrow trading range, as fears over the SARS virus escalated.
Staffing and systems key for exotics
LONDON -- Staffing and systems integration are key to the right exotics options pricing model, according to officials speaking at a derivatives seminar held in London last week.
ABN, Deutsche top forecast rankings
LONDON -- ABN Amro was the most accurate currency forecaster based on a one-month prediction made on March 7, while Deutsche Bank took top spot for 3m forecasts submitted three months ago in FX Week ’s table of forecasters (see below).
Client trading volumes rising
LONDON -- Booming hedge fund interest and an increasing number of client banks in the market are boosting global customer forex volumes, according to data from research consultancy Greenwich Associates.
CFTC charges two for fraud
WASHINGTON, DC -- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last week continued its drive against retail FX fraud, charging two firms with frauds totalling over $10 million.
More prime brokers take to web
LONDON -- Automation of the prime brokerage industry is well underway, with a host of new services set to hit the market in the coming months.
Audits attract UK funds to overlay
LONDON -- A growth in audit services to assess forex transaction costs is sparking increasing interest in currency overlay among UK pension funds.
Market uncertainty hits Cognotec
LONDON -- Irish FX trading software vendor Cognotec is cutting three positions in New York and one in Frankfurt in response to continuing uncertain market conditions, said chief executive Brian Maccaba.
Pressure mounts to keep Duisenberg at the ECB
FRANKFURT -- Political pressure is mounting on European Central Bank (ECB) president Wim Duisenberg to continue his tenure beyond his planned retirement in June.
Currenex white-labels trading platform
LONDON -- Multi-bank portal Currenex has sold a white-label version of its FX trading platform to an un-named bank, an official said last week.
CLS interest picks up in Asia
SINGAPORE -- Asian financial institutions are becoming increasingly aware of the continuous-linked-settlement (CLS) service, according to research made public by ABN Amro last week. Just 30% of respondents in the bank’s survey of its clients in the…
Japan confirms March interventions
TOKYO -- The Bank of Japan, on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, spent nearly ¥1.2 trillion in March in a bid to ease the Japanese currency’s strength against the dollar and the euro.
Dollar consolidation brings FX manager joy
STAMFORD, CT -- A temporary halt in the US dollar’s downtrend helped 60% of currency managers on the Parker FX Index maintain positive returns in February. But returns were limited -- the index was up just 0.16% for the month.
Reuters mounts EBS challenge
LONDON -- Reuters is mounting a bid to unseat the Electronic Broking Service (EBS) as the premier broker in euro/dollar, a senior Reuters official told FX Week .
Mizuho sales head leaves
LONDON -- Head of treasury sales Richard Burrows and senior treasury sales dealer Neil Callard have left Mizuho Financial in London, just a year after winning their positions at the new bank.