Derivs - People and Markets

The Korea Exchange is planning to launch voluntary clearing of Korean won-denominated over-the-counter interest rate swaps sometime between May-and-June via its central clearinghouse. Mandatory clearing will likely to start after August.

EBS Market, the electronic fx platform owned by ICAP, has named Nichola Hunter and John Schoen as co-heads of the platform, in two newly created roles.

Japanese investment firms have either already registered as major swap participants, or are in the midst of preparing to register with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission as they near the USD8 billion swap position threshold set by the regulator.

Staffers working in derivatives units at European banks in the U.S. and Asia Pacific would be hit hard should restrictions surrounding bonus payouts from the European Union go into force.

A number of South Korean asset management firms are looking to issue synthetic exchange-traded funds in the country later this year.

LCH.Clearnet has tapped David Weisbrod for a newly-created role as ceo of its U.S. subsidiary, based in New York.

Jeff Christian, a managing director in equity derivative sales at Deutsche Bank in San Francisco, has left the firm.

The Hogg Tendering Advisory Committee for the London interbank offered rate has launched the tendering process to find a new Libor administrator.

Thai domestic structured product regulation is leading to greater volumes as issuers and investors now have greater legal clarity.

Marc Baylis, the ex-head of equity derivatives single stock trading at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London, and Sasha Diklich, the ex-co-head of derivatives at Renaissance Capital in London, are set to join Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Regulating market indices in the same way as interest rate benchmarks would result in additional costs for providers, which would ultimately be passed onto end-users and potentially raise barriers to entry into the indexing business, according to buyside firms.

Simon Oddie, director in interest rates trading at Barclays in London, has left the firm.