Derivs - People and Markets

ANZ is looking to leverage Swiss firm Vontobel’s structured product and fund expertise in a push to expand private banking business in the Asia Pacific.

StormHarbour Securities has hired Charles Scheyd, a former director in global markets and credit derivatives at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, as a managing director in marketing in a new role.

UBS has been fined GBP29.7 million (USD47.5 million) by the U.K. Financial Services Authority in relation to systems and control failings that allowed Kweku Adoboli, a trader in the firm’s global synthetic equities division, to generate about USD 2.3 billion in unauthorized trading losses at the firm. The Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority has also imposed preventative measures to limit the firm’s operational risks.

Australia-based funds may not be ready to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act when acting as a counterparty with U.S.-registered swap dealers, cutting off a significant market to U.S. firms, according to market officials.

The South Korean government’s threat to intervene in its currency appreciation and limiting the fx derivative positions of local financial firms will have little impact on volatility in outstanding fx derivative contracts that reference the won, according to Robert Minikin, senior foreign exchange strategist at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong.

E.U. short selling regulation that was introduced earlier this month is putting pressure on the compliance functions of some structured product issuers globally. According to lawyers, those under the most pressure are global financial institutions with multiple affiliates and branches, with it likely that new compliance units will have to be set up to track and match short and long positions across the entire group.

It is difficult to predict whether E.U. regulation will be aligned with the U.S. in exempting fx forwards and swaps from the clearing obligation, Rodrigo Buenaventura, head of markets at the European Securities and Markets Authority, told DI.

Credit Suisse is restructuring its business, siphoning off investment banking into a separate division, while combining private banking and asset management to form the private banking and wealth management division.

Bastien Lussault has been hired by London-based interdealer broker Forte Securities as a director in equity derivatives brokerage sales.

Proposals to ring-fence significant market-making activities of European banks would increase funding costs and restrict banks’ ability to offer cost-effective financing and risk management services to clients, according to a letter from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

Kok Tong Tan, head of emerging markets fx and non-deliverable forward trading, and Rajat Ray, director and head of EM rates trading, both left Barclays’ fixed income team in Singapore last week.

The names are emerging of the UBS interest rates trading staffers to leave as part of a wind down of fixed income announced last week.