Derivs - People and Markets

Bank of America Merrill Lynch had lost Zahid Biviji, managing director and head of single stock flow trading and corporate derivatives, and Tom Kertelits, a director in the same group in New York.

Lloyds Banking Group has promoted Jeremy Adam to head of fx structuring in London.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association is recommending that prudential regulators implementing the Volcker Rule alter their proposal to continue to allow for customer-focused proprietary trading by recasting proposed “hard-coded criteria” as “guidance” for market participants.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association has called for changes to plans by U.S. exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to revamp market-wide circuit breakers.

Investors have unloaded credit default swaps referencing a Greek government bond set to mature March 20 after realizing that the bond’s seven-day grace period could render their protection worthless, and have instead opted for longer-dated CDS to ensure benefiting from a failure to pay credit event on the bond.

South Korea retains the world largest financial derivatives market title in 2011, accounting for 27% of total trading volume, according to World Federation of Exchanges data.

Macquarie is said to be reducing the size of its investment-banking staff in Asia by roughly 10%.

Liquidnet has named Patrick Young as non-executive director of Liquidnet Europe.

Saxo Bank has expanded its derivatives product offering with the introduction of contract options.

UBS is said to have let go Manuel Oliveri and Taso Anastasiou as fx strategists in Zurich.

Global real estate firm CBRE has hired Michael Atwell as head of capital markets for Central and eastern Europe.

Alternative proposals in Europe for non-equity pre-trade transparency in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II will be considered, although it is too early to say what form such rules will take, according to Markus Ferber, Member of the European Parliament, who is heading up MiFID for the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.