ING Financial Markets has transferred its Asia-Pacific credit derivatives trading operation from Tokyo to Hong Kong as part of a regional reorganization. "We're putting all of our capital markets-related trading under one roof," said Sheel Kohli, spokesman in Hong Kong. About six staff including Trevor Vail, credit derivatives trader, made the move to put the derivative traders alongside the regional bond traders. "Sales, marketing, and distribution in Japan remains unaffected," Kohli explained. Vail declined all comment. Kohli continued that ING is now concentrating regional trading out of its two main Asian hubs: Hong Kong and Singapore. He noted that interest rate and fx trading for Japan has always been handled from its hubs offshore.
ING recently centralized its Hong Kong-based interest rate and foreign exchange operation to Singapore to reduce costs and eliminate duplicate back office operations (DW, 12/15).
Goldman Sachs (DW, 10/27) and Credit Suisse First Boston (DW, 11/17) have also consolidated credit trading operations in Asia. "There's no need to have three or four dealing rooms in Asia Pacific--you don't see this in Europe or the U.S.," said Matthew Miller, head of fixed income and derivatives recruitment at Global Sage in Tokyo.
