Derivs - Credit

Credit Suisse is restructuring its business, siphoning off investment banking into a separate division, while combining private banking and asset management to form the private banking and wealth management division.

The Hong Kong Exchange has seen a 6% increase in its derivative market turnover from July 2011 through June 2012, with 135 million contracts executed, up from 127 million.

Credit Suisse is recommending entering 2s5s repurchase agreement interest rate swap spreads on the Chinese reminbi, as it believes the swap curve will steepen on the back of better liquidity conditions arising from growth.

Société Générale strategists are advising investors to sell EUR100 million in the iTraxx Senior Financials versus EUR100 million in the iTraxx Main to profit from an expected fall in the ratio between both indices.

Proposals to ring-fence significant market-making activities of European banks would increase funding costs and restrict banks’ ability to offer cost-effective financing and risk management services to clients, according to a letter from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

Kok Tong Tan, head of emerging markets fx and non-deliverable forward trading, and Rajat Ray, director and head of EM rates trading, both left Barclays’ fixed income team in Singapore last week.

The names are emerging of the UBS interest rates trading staffers to leave as part of a wind down of fixed income announced last week.

UBS is launching outperformance bonus certificates that enable investors to benefit from the appreciation of an emerging market currency basket against the euro.

UBS Global Asset Management has hired former JPMorgan analyst Weili Lam as a credit analyst in its fixed income research team in Hong Kong.

UBS is issuing structured credit-linked notes in Switzerland linked to Fiat. The CLNs transfer credit risk to investors while enhancing the potential return through a conditional coupon.

Gavin Vanderplank, managing director and head of interest rate swaps at UBS in Sydney, has left the firm.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is expected to keep the Hong Kong dollar pegged to the U.S. dollar, despite recent inflows strengthening the currency and moving it close to its upper barrier, according to fx traders.