Derivs - Interest Rate

Ben Shooter, a managing director and head of global currencies and emerging markets sales at Credit Suisse in London, is joining JB Drax Honoré, a LIFFE short-term interest rate options broker, in a similar role.

Members of the U.K. Parliament have accused major banks, including Barclays, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland, of engaging in a systematic effort to mis-sell interest rate swaps.

Appetite for risk, depth in global interest rates research and strength in developing bespoke structured and flow products in both emerging and developed markets were some of the plaudits from buysiders that set the Royal Bank of Scotland apart from competitors in the interest rates derivatives market over the last year. That helped the firm land the 2012 Interest Rate Derivatives House Of The Year award from the editors of Derivatives Week/Derivatives Intelligence.

Buyside firms have been active in long Euribor/overnight index swaps basis wideners over the last two weeks. The trades underscore that some buysiders are adopting OIS instead of Libor/Euribor swaps as alternative hedges, according to market officials.

Deutsche Bank has won three awards in the 2012 Global Derivatives Awards, including Global Derivatives House of the Year. Nomura and UBS each earned two nods, in the annual awards for excellence as judged by the edit staff of Derivatives Week/Derivatives Intelligence.

Alliance Bernstein has cleared interest rate swaps through LCH.Clearnet’s SwapClear, becoming the 75th end user to clear IRS with via the service.

Jordi Chiu, regional head of South East Asia emerging markets interest rates trading at Société Générale in Singapore, is set to join JPMorgan.

A Chinese over-the-counter central clearing counterparty will not be recognized internationally until China strengthens netting and insolvency laws and refinements are made to the Shanghai Clearing House’s default management protocol.

The Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group, an influential division of the European Securities and Markets Authority, has criticized a proposal from the pan-European regulator for technical standards on margin calculation models for central counterparties.

Clearing of over-the-counter interest rate swaps via Singapore Exchange’s central clearing counterparty DerivativesClear declined sharply in May to SGD6.15 billion (USD4.81 billion) after a strong showing in April, with over SGD45 billion (USD35.21 billion) of contracts cleared.

Adjusted volumes of over-the-counter non-fx derivatives have dropped by 10.3% over the last year to USD400 trillion largely because of portfolio compression, according to an analysis by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

Lawrence Rascio, senior interest rates derivatives trader and portfolio manager at hedge fund NineAlpha Capital in New York, has left the firm.