CDC Ixis Capital Markets, a subsidiary of CDC Ixis, plans to start offering foreign exchange derivatives for the first time within a year. The bank currently offers interest-rate and foreign exchange hybrid derivatives, but has not offered pure foreign exchange derivatives on a permanent basis before, according to Stéphane Kourganoff, global head of fixed income derivatives in Paris. He added the bank will only offer exotic derivatives because it has a specialty in structured products and does not have the global presence to hedge high-gamma options. Firms need a global presence to hedge this type of options because they require constant trading of the underlying risk.
The bank is likely to hire two or three exotic options traders who will report to Vincent Gesser, global head of foreign exchange hybrid and structured transactions in London. Gesser declined comment. Kourganoff said the expansion is a logical next step from the hybrid products it started offering last year (DW, 8/7).
