Derivs - People and Markets

Foreign central banks will be allowed to repatriate their RMB holdings without restrictions if they have invested in China’s interbank bond market (CIBM) or traded in the onshore foreign exchange market, said the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) in two announcements released on April 14.

China is set to launch a new gold price benchmark via the Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), according to market participants. The initiative will see the involvement of both local and foreign financial institutions, marking a new achievement in China’s quest to make the RMB a reference currency in the commodity markets.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association and other industry bodies have called on global regulators to drop dual-sided derivatives trade reporting and instead accept an entity-based approach.

Nomura plans to close most of its equity operations in Europe, shutting down origination, research, sales and equity derivatives, though it will keep a sales force focused on bringing Asian products to European clients.

Investors have been loading up on higher yielding long term corporate bonds, in spite of the asset class's average credit rating having declined in recent years.

Four banks have teamed up with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Markit, and Axoni, a distributed ledger technology firm, to undertake the market’s first test of a blockchain solution for managing single name credit default swap post-trade events.

Market participants and their lawyers were this week studying the US Department of Labor’s lengthy new fiduciary rules for retirement accounts, as the industry worries about a big shift in the way it can offer financial products to the country’s savers. One derivatives-related area on which officials appear to have taken advice is their previous plan to limit the ability of investors to hold listed options.

Market participants and their lawyers were still poring over the US Department of Labor’s mammoth ream of fiduciary rules on Wednesday evening following its publication that day, but one derivatives-related area on which officials appear to have taken advice is their previous plan to limit the ability of investors to hold listed options in their retirement accounts.

The Basel Committee has made an adjustment to the way it wants leverage ratios to be calculated, in a change that will lessen the capital burden on many banks that deal in derivatives.

trueEX, the interest rate swap trading platform, has started supported market activity during London business hours as it looks to build its client base in Europe.

Ally Financial has signed an agreement to buy options broker-dealer TradeKing Group for $275m, in a deal that brings $4.5bn of assets and technology.

The European Securities Markets Authority (ESMA) has said it doesn’t see a need to exclude for 30 months exchange traded derivatives from access to central counterparties (CCPs) and trading venues under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II, finding that their immediate inclusion doesn’t threaten financial stability.