Derivs - People and Markets

Rising losses from derivatives helped send MetLife to a first-quarter loss of USD64 million, compared with a profit of USD877 million a year earlier.

HSBC has added the responsibility for cross selling global banking and armlet products to commercial banking clients to Rod Sykes, head of debt capital markets origination for Asia-Pacific.

Mizuho Securities USA has named Jon Bass as managing director and to the new position of head of high-yield sales in its fixed-income business.

Philip Jan Kok, managing director of credit solutions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London, has left after nine months at the firm.

The European Securities and Markets Authority is calling for a ban on credit rating agency employees participating in or influencing ratings if they own derivatives of the rated entity or have had a relationship with a rated entity or related party.

Australia will not directly or immediately mandate clearing of over-the-counter derivatives. It will let the market decide if a domestically-domiciled central clearing counterparty is needed, making it the first G20 nation to propose a market driven approach to mandatory clearing.

Roughly three-quarters of European banks said they face challenges collecting data on derivatives despite significant investment in technology to make the task more efficient, according to a survey by software firm Sybase.

Nordea has launched the Nordea 1—European Low CDS Government Bond Fund, a fixed-income fund that will invest in European government bonds with the lowest average five-year credit default swap spreads over a three-month period.

Norges Bank has released a working paper that studies sovereign risk contagion in major euro zone countries using credit default swap spreads.

Crédit Agricole Cheuvreux has launched BLINK MTF, a European equity-trading facility.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. has begun accepting trade submissions into the new global trade repository for commodities following a pilot program in January.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing has announced that it plans to launch renminbi fx futures in the third quarter, and has scheduled a market-readiness test for June.