Derivs - FX

Earlier this month, Reporter Mike Kentz spoke to Robert Pickel, executive vice chairman of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association in New York, in the final installment of our series of interviews on swap execution facilities and derivatives regulation.

Citigroup has promoted Mike Pringle to the new position of head of global equities trading. Pringle has been head of equities for Europe, Middle East and Africa since 2009.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association is working on amendments to section 2(a)(iii) of its master agreements to reduce legal disputes in cases of default.

The European Securities and Markets Authority has agreed on the final rules for the risk management and calculation of global exposures for structured UCITS funds.

Industrial Bank Co., China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China have joined the onshore renminbi options trading market that kicked off on the first of the month, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade Center.

Banks operating in Asia are likely to suffer from the fragmented approach to derivatives reforms taken by countries in the region.

Swap execution facilities overwhelmingly are viewed as improving the derivatives trading market, according to a Tabb Group.

The 1973 paper by Black and Scholes on pricing financial derivatives led to an explosion in the volumes of traded options. It demonstrated that after hedging all dependence on the underlying asset, the main driver on the value of the option becomes its dependence on volatility. Today, volatility represents the price of the option and is traded increasingly in pure form that does not depend on the actual move of the underlying.

Tan Sri Zarinah Anwar, chairman of the Malaysia Securities Commission, said government-backed growth in the derivatives market is an integral part of the newly announced Capital Markets Masterplan 2.

Royal Bank of Scotland has lost four institutional and corporate solutions structurers in Hong Kong, including Chun Ng and Steven Tsang, both directors, according to an official familiar with the moves

BMO Capital Markets has opened an fx office in Hong Kong as it continues to expand its capital market presence in Asia.

PARIS – End users over the past month have been showing more interest in contingent credit default swaps linked to cross currency swaps as concern over sovereign defaults has grown.