The Royal Bank of Scotland is preparing to boost its presence in the Asian equity derivative markets with impending transfers after laying down the framework last year. "We have aspirations to capitalize on the strong customer interest in the region and continue to grow our equity derivatives business globally," said David Samuel, co-head of equity derivatives at RBS in London.
The bank last spring brought Gareth Owen, now-Asian head of equity derivatives, to Hong Kong from London to establish an operation and start its single-stock trading. Samuel said the bank will relocate three additional staff to Hong Kong in the coming weeks to kick-start index trading and exotic equity-linked product structuring. Index trading will initially focus on the Hang Seng Index and Korea's KOSPI index. Samuel continued the group will work closely with the financial markets sales team already in place.
