News
China forex volumes rise
BEIJING -- Forex turnover in the Chinese market rocketed by 73% in January, according to data made public last week.
Dollar downtrend halts decline in US hedging
NEW YORK -- The US dollar’s decline in recent months has sparked an increase in hedging activity among US companies, six months after senior FX officials reported that many firms were unhedged.
Trading places
BoA hires China head
eSpeed to add spot and forwards forex
LONDON -- Electronic broker eSpeed is adding spot and forwards FX broking to its platform in the second half of this year to cater for traders who cover multiple asset classes.
BIS expands derivatives data
BASEL -- The Bank for International Settlements said last week that it is expanding its statistics on banks’ country risk exposures to include data on derivatives exposures to individual countries.
Rusnak lessons still unheeded
NEW YORK -- Global banks are yet to implement key recommendations to limit rogue trading losses, one year on from John Rusnak’s record $700 million forex fraud.
Tech briefs
CBA adds FXall link
BoA loses global market head
NEW YORK -- Duncan Goldie-Morrison, Bank of America’s global markets chief will leave the firm at the end of this month following a reorganisation of BoA’s global markets group.
eSpeed to add spot and forwards forex
LONDON -- Electronic broker eSpeed is adding spot and forwards FX broking to its platform in the second half of this year to cater for traders who cover multiple asset classes.
ABN reports FX uptick
LONDON -- Dutch bank ABN Amro reported a 40% rise in FX dealing income for 2002 in a report released last week.
Goldman to add FX to research portal
LONDON -- Investment bank Goldman Sachs will add FX to a new centralised data and research platform in March.
Trema corners central bank FX market
STOCKHOLM -- Swedish technology firm Trema is tightening its grip on the market for central bank FX technology, senior officials at the firm told FX Week .
GFI closes FX options mark-to-market gap
NEW YORK -- Solving the problem of marking FX options to market came a step closer to being resolved last week, with the launch of a new ‘revaluation fixing’ service from New York-based interdealer broker GFI.
Forex unhurt as ING cuts in New York
NEW YORK -- Foreign exchange has been spared in a cull of staff at ING in New York. Only one forex position was cut, said a bank spokesperson, in a spate of departures in January and February.
Politics, economy deal double blow to sterling
LONDON -- The British pound was at the mercy of economic and political concerns last week as it plummeted to a three-and-a-half-year low against the euro.
Blix report boosts dollar
NEW YORK -- The US dollar rallied slightly in the wake of United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix’s report on Iraq late last Friday.
BBH takes FX Index Link online
NEW YORK -- US custodian Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) has put its FX Index Link trading service online.
Mid-market ripe for electronic FX trading
NEW YORK -- The corporate middle-market sector is ripe for growth in its adoption of electronic FX trading systems, analysts and vendors told FX Week .
Private client demand soars for FX firm
LONDON -- More private clients in the UK buying property in Europe has boosted demand for a new specialist FX firm, a senior official at Seagray Matthews Foreign Exchange (SGM-FX) told FX Week .
Combined sales teams take off
LONDON -- The FX sales dealer may soon be a thing of the past if a new trend for cross-product sales teams catches on.
BoA HK focuses on debt capital raising
HONG KONG -- Bank of America has hired Abidin Siregar in a newly created role as head of global markets, Hong Kong. He will cover sales, trading and research, and build the bank’s debt capital raising business across the region.
DrKW platform adds spot gold
FRANKFURT -- Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW) has gone live with non-physical spot gold trading on its online trading platform Piranha FX, the bank announced last week.
Tech briefs
Trayport launches Global View 8
Prosecutor calls for Trichet conviction
PARIS -- Jean-Pierre Bernard, the French state prosecutor in the trial of Bank of France governor Jean-Claude Trichet, said last week that Trichet should be convicted.