Foreign exchange
Human touch will always be needed
Markets have been on the move again this week. Comments from retired Fed chairman Alan Greenspan about the US housing market and noise surrounding China's reserve policy ensured that the greenback at last broke through the 1.26–1.28 range that it had…
Payments industry gathers in Sydney
This year's Sibos conference held in Sydney brought together some 6,500 participants to discuss the latest developments in payment and settlement systems. Here, FX Week brings you some of the news from the eventSwift launches pilot for corporate program
Rennies adopts CheckFree solution
SYDNEY – Rennies Bank, a South African forex specialist, is now employing CheckFree's Accurate NXG straight-through processing solution to help better manage potential operational risk for internal and external customers.
Singapore hosts second FX Week Asia conference
SINGAPORE – On Tuesday (October 17), the second FX Week Asia conference will be held at the Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore. The event brings together leading speakers and buy- and sell-side market participants.
Cognotec moves into custody
SYDNEY – Technology vendor Cognotec this week launches a custody service that automates the forex component of securities transactions.
Students to trade forex, with a $10,000 prize
AUSTIN, Texas – Online forex platform GFT has set up a competition that pits students’ wits against a simulated FX market. The prize is $10,000 with which to trade on the real thing.
Missing links in Korea and Taiwan
Mirza Baig and James Malcolm, FX researchers at Deutsche Bank in Singapore, examine the relationship between the Korean won’s surplus and changes in the Taiwanese dollar
UK business unprepared for hedging changes
LONDON – Medium-sized UK companies are unprepared for forthcoming rule changes on accounting standards that require more rigorous reporting of FX exposure, according to forex specialist HiFX.
'Boiler room' retail FX fraudsters face US court for high-pressure techniques
NEW YORK – The retail foreign exchange market suffered another blow at the end of last month, as 11 men were indicted by a US court on charges of ‘boiler room’ fraud.
Asian expansion for Fimat
ASIA-PACIFIC & MIDDLE EAST – Fimat, the brokerage arm of Société Générale, is slated to use BT Radianz’ Proximity Solution in Asia to provide low-latency access to derivatives exchanges in Korea, Singapore and Japan.
MarketSpace adds more participants
CHICAGO – CME/Reuters’ joint venture FXMarketSpace has signed a second group of banks, saying this indicates widespread acceptance from market participants.
BIS: debt now bigger problem than inflation
BASEL – The main structural threat to global economic growth is no longer runaway inflation, but a slower rebalancing of excess debt, according to a working paper released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
BarCap joins algo bandwagon
LONDON – Barclays Capital (BarCap) has joined a select group of banks that has started offering algorithmic trading for forex over their single-bank platforms.
BarCap enhances white-labelling
LONDON & MOUNTAIN VIEW – Barclays Capital has enhanced its white-label offering, signing an agreement with California-based Integral.
FXMarketSpace builds Americas sales force
LONDON – Forex trading platform FXMarketSpace has appointed Phillip Harris as senior vice-president and head of sales, Americas, as it continues to add staff ahead of its launch.
Rabobank becomes EBS Prime bank
LONDON – Rabobank has become the latest institution to join spot broker EBS’ Prime initiative as a prime bank.
New talent thin on the ground
LONDON – Banks are struggling to attract junior FX derivatives staff according to banks and headhunters.
Bank of America adds to ETS
Bank of America is enhancing its suite of e-trading capabilities to include live options execution, improved pricing and risk management among other new features.
CME names first market-makers for Korea futures contracts
SEOUL – The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) has announced the selection of five banks as the first market-makers for CME Korean won futures contracts.
SG CIB realigns FX business
LONDON & PARIS – SG Corporate and Investment Banking (SG CIB) plans to realign its foreign exchange business within a new fixed income, currencies and commodities division early next year.
Bloomberg revamps FX Dealing system
NEW YORK – Data and trading technology vendor Bloomberg has released a revamped version of its single and multibank request-for-quote (RFQ) system, FX Dealing.
Thailand coup makes little impact on baht
BANGKOK – Last week’s military coup in Thailand is unlikely to have a lasting impact on the baht, according to analysts in the region.
Old news set to leave China behind
China’s plans to delay the information flow from foreign news agencies by filtering it through Xinhua news agency is worrying, and it is likely to be counterproductive.
A capital adventure
Michael Spencer tells FX Week about how he turned Icap from a four-man business into a £3 billion FTSE 100-listed powerhouse in 20 years, and about his plans for EBS