Derivs - People and Markets

The European Securities and Markets Authority has declared that a central counterparty should not exclude client positions from the calculation of the size of the default fund.

Kan Fung Li, managing director and head of Asia Pacific fx trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has left the firm.

Scott Becker, equity index options trader at Jefferies in New York, is joining Morgan Stanley in a similar role, also in New York.

A new shari’a master agreement to manage firm liquidity will spur the introduction of instruments and structures for shari'a compliant liquidity management.

The increase in hedging costs post-Dodd Frank will lead to a drag on fixed income portfolio returns, with costs ranging from 20-62 basis points for centrally cleared instruments, according to a report from Sapient Global Markets.

Ashwin Kulkarni, ex-head of interest rate volatility trading at Credit Suisse in New York, has joined Nomura as an executive director and head of U.S. interest rate volatility trading, also in New York.

Irene Brunner, the ex-head of public distribution for structured products at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Zurich, has joined Deutsche Bank as head of passive investments, Switzerland, also in Zurich.

Deutsche Bank Asset Management has hired Albert Lau, former executive director-equity derivatives institutional investor sales at JPMorgan in Hong Kong.

Amendments to one of South Korea’s key financial regulations, designed to regulate mandatory central clearing of over-the-counter derivatives, should allow for mutual recognition of overseas clearinghouses.

Dimitrios Nikolakopoulos, managing director and co-head of equity exotics and hybrids trading, at JPMorgan in London, has left the firm.

Tommy Morris, index derivatives trader at Barclays in New York, is joining UBS in a similar role, also in New York.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has written to the Bank of England to warn against regulating for full asset segregation. Draft European Markets Infrastructure Regulation proposals to segregate margin deposits of individual clients in futures swaps were originally designed to offer greater client protection in case of counterparty default.