Derivs - Interest Rate

Credit Suisse recently sold a synthetic securitization of Swiss small-to-medium enterprise loans, known as Clock Finance 2013-1 BV.

Kevin Holmes, head of U.S. dollar interest rate options trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, has left the firm.

Nicholas Brophy, head of U.S. dollar interest rates trading at Citigroup in New York, has left the firm.

The decision by the U.K. government in Chancellor George Osborne’s budget last week to decide against smoothing the discount curve to value U.K. pension fund liabilities presents the case to buy GBP 10y gamma versus 30y, according to Société Générale.

Pension funds do not have the cash needed to provide margins to central counterparties, and therefore the temporary exemption from the clearing obligation under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation is warranted, according to Steven Maijoor, chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority.

Massimo Tassan-Solet, managing director and head of U.S. dollar interest rate options trading in New York, has left Deutsche Bank.

Chinese derivative rules allowing domestic securities firms to trade over-the counter derivatives onshore have created questions over which regulator takes precedence when those firms trade with banks.

Given the uncertainty surrounding Cyprus, Credit Suisse is recommending a 2s5s flattener on the euro forward rate agreement-overnight index curve as a hedge for a systemic collapse.

The industry is concerned that product intervention rules will have a detrimental effect on innovation and may risk in firms limiting their offerings to vanilla products.

MarkitSERV has launched a pre-trade credit checking hub for over-the-counter derivatives transactions.

Average transaction volume on meta-platform Derivative.com, the Swiss multi-dealer structured product click and trade platform, increased from CHF684, 344 in the four weeks leading up to Jan. 10, to CHF765, 276 during the four weeks up until Feb. 7, according to the firm’s latest client alert.

At least one bank is publicly proclaiming what many others have been talking about privately in the wake of tighter U.S. regulations. Frank Pucci, a senior compliance official at ANZ, told an Asian conclave this week that his firm is really benefiting from having full access to the U.S. markets, yet is able to attract business from non-U.S. counterparties in Asia who want to avoid compliance with Dodd-Frank.