Derivs - People and Markets

Mainland Chinese corporates are unwilling to provide credit support annex documents when entering cross-border derivative contracts, making it difficult for foreign dealers to sell hedging products, such as fx forwards and options, to their Chinese corporate clients.

Nancy Davis, the former head of trading for OTC, derivatives and credit at Goldman Sachs prop in New York, is to launch a discretionary global macro firm.

Georges Fernandes, an emerging markets credit trader at Mizuho Securities in New York, has left the firm.

Ajay Gupta, managing director and head of equity derivative trading at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, has left the firm.

Laurent Ichard, co-head of equities distribution at JPMorgan in London, and Ramon Baljé, head of sales for the Netherlands and Nordics, also in London, have left the firm.

The European Commission has set a deadline of the end of the year for the European Securities and Markets Authority to deliver technical advice on supervisory measures and the collection of fines from trade repositories, as set out by the European Market Infrastructure Regulation.

The Reserve Bank of India is looking to improve the availability of long-term over-the-counter fx forwards by developing the country’s money market and interest rate swaps market, making it easier to price forwards with tenors greater than one year.

Matthew Totham, managing director and head of equity trading at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, is relocating back to the firm’s London office.

Deutsche Bank has hired Masahiko Maihara as an interest rates options trader in Tokyo.

Algorithms or expert judgment should be used when there is insufficient relevant transactional data to compile a benchmark, according to George Handjinicolaou, deputy ceo and head of Europe, Middle East and Africa at the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

Some of Europe’s biggest banking associations have warned European Union finance ministers that the financial transaction tax will damage derivative volumes if the current proposals are implemented as planned in January 2014. Under the FTT, financial transactions will face taxes of 0.01% for derivatives and 0.1% for stocks and bonds.

European dealers and counterparties in Japan are looking at contingency plans in case the country’s central clearing counterparty and clearing regulatory regime do not obtain mutual recognition and equivalence status from the European Securities and Markets Authority under the European Market Infrastructure Regulation.