LOOSE CHANGE

In what seems more and more like swings and roundabouts, Chemical Bank selected Reuters over Teknekron Software Systems Inc. to provide its new, 450-position New York trading room with a local data distribution system. The room will house the bank's foreign currency, treasury funding and fixed-income and derivatives trading desks that emerged since Chemical acquired Manufacturers Hanover. Chemical's choice of Reuters in New York strays from its decision to outfit its 220-position London room with a system from Teknekron; Chemical believes the Reuters system is better suited to the larger New York room. As FX Week went to press, Chemical was due to choose between workstations from Hewlett-Packard Co. or Sun Microsystems Inc. for the Reuters Triarch 2000 system in New York.

Pit Info Corp. hopes to go live from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange with its electronic market-data service this month, when it expects executive committee approval (FX Week, December 21). With the benefit of Merc seats, Pit Info, owned by ex-Merc pit traders Larry Kraut and Maury Kravitz, will provide ringside reports on transactions, including counterparty identities and size of orders, in the four CME currency futures pits. A September launch date was delayed by refinements to the Verbex voice recognition system Pit Info employs. The recent addition of a keyboard option to Verbex will allow Pit Info to keystroke comments previously limited by the Verbex structure.

As if to prove that one volunteer is better than 10 pressed persons, Mitsui T&B Options Inc. has chosen to take over the Deutsche mark book for the Philadelphia Options Exchange's night session. Societe Generale had filled the gap on a temporary basis after Salomon Brothers Inc. pulled out last May (FX Week, January 11). The task of finding a specialist to run the low volume hours led to a currency committee vote two weeks ago over the night sessions' fate. The vote was passed, but no new specialist had emerged. "Since we were already a market-maker, we decided to take over the night session book," says Stephen Soulas, Mitsui Options' senior trader. "We got a small incentive program, but we really believe it's in the best interests of the exchange to keep this product open."

The Options Clearing Corp. (OCC) received an "AAA" credit rating from Standard & Poor's Corp. last week. This is the first time such a clean bill of health has been assigned to a U.S. clearing organization. Normally granted to companies that issue public debt, the "AAA" rating is the highest assigned by S&P.

Dow Jones/Telerate has formed a strategic alliance with Ireland-based Credo Group Ltd., a supplier of real-time information services. Credo is now exclusive supplier and marketer of Telerate's products in Ireland and Northern Ireland. It has also taken on all support and maintenance in the region. All Telerate staff in Ireland have transferred to Credo, say officials, to ensure "continuity to existing customers."

Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken has split itself into three divisions, one for nonperforming loans, one for retail and smaller businesses, and one for large companies. The reorganization has resulted in management changes in the bank's treasury. Lars Gustafsson, formerly head of treasury, has moved on to run the retail division. His deputy, Lars Isacsson, head of global trading and financing, will become chief financial officer, which is a new position at the bank, he says. According to Isacsson, his successor running the trading room has not yet been named officially, but an announcement will be made this week. Stay tuned.

The Bank of Japan reported that dollar/yen turnover in Tokyo dropped to an average $3.65 billion a day in the week ended January 22, from the $4.72 billion in the week ended January 15. Meanwhile, average daily dollar/mark turnover for the same period fell to $2.54 billion, from $2.99 billion in the week ended January 15.