Derivs - People and Markets

Populist governments will be tempted to use the opportunity presented by record low yields to borrow money at close to zero interest rates to reverse austerity and fund major spending schemes, according to the authors of a study into long-term asset returns. Meanwhile, an economist elsewhere suggested lax monetary policy has meant sovereign credit default swap (CDS) prices are underrepresenting risks.

Steven Maijoor, chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority, has pointed to challenges on the path to reform of euro risk free rates, and highlighted fallbacks as his organisation’s most important next hurdle.

Broker Marex Solutions has launched a dedicated US OTC hedging entity, Marex Spectron, as it seeks to broaden its US offering.

Nomura has hired Kate Massey as vice president to help work on the expansion of its foreign exchange electronic trading platform.

US Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Heath Tarbert has followed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Christopher Giancarlo, in issuing a strong warning on the European Union’s EMIR 2.2 rules.

Natixis has become the first bank to introduce a green weighting factor to its internal capital model, so that the way it prices loans is skewed to favour environmentally sound assets and disadvantage polluting ones. The ground-breaking move brings to fruition an 18 month project and anticipates what some believe may one day be demanded by regulators.

Trading turnover of FX swaps has increased by more than a third to $3.3tr a day during the past three years, outpacing growth in spot markets, according to the Bank of International Settlements’ triennial survey of the global FX market, released this week.

Michael Zollweg is standing down as head of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and Eurex Germanys' trading surveillance office, the body that supervises trading on both bourses.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has appointed Dorothy DeWitt to lead its market oversight division.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has proposed to ease derivatives rules for US banks, including swap margin requirements.

The Democrat side of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has come out swinging against agreed changes to the Volcker rule.

Russell Thornton, who worked as the head of business development and product marketing for derivatives at Fidessa, has become trading strategy lead at another company.