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The Royal Bank of Scotland has hired Shelley Sheng, v.p. in fixed income derivatives marketing at Lehman Brothers in Hong Kong, in a new role responsible for Taiwan coverage.

--Jamie McWilliam, executive director and Asian head of the derivative sales and solutions group at ABN AMRO in Hong Kong, commenting on an expected slowdown in derivatives use from corporates filing under International Financial Reporting Standards.

The complex security design of collateralized debt obligations is arranged and administered like a managed fund, allowing issuers to refinance the purchase of debt instruments by repackaging them into different slices of risk and maturity.

JPMorgan is aiming to bring dealers and lawyers together this Thursday to discuss best practices for selling retail structured products.

Credit, equity and fx derivative volumes fell dramatically over the last year in Australia, despite over-the-counter market growth of 20%, according to a survey by the Australian Financial Markets Association.

UBS Global Asset Management is set to start buying and selling credit-default swaps to manage a collateralized swap obligation structured by JPMorgan.

The number of U.K. fund managers using credit derivatives is expected to jump when an iTraxx sterling credit-default swap index is launched next week.

Credit default swaps on General Motors and Ford Motor reached their highest levels ever as speculation about a bankruptcy filing from GM increased last week.

Dealers and buysiders met at the midtown office of BlueMountain Capital Management last Thursday and moved a step closer to hammering out the framework and ground rules for loan-deliverable credit default swaps, or LCDS.

--Film star Kevin Costner, preaching the virtues a cold formula developed by Victoria Knight-McDowell, a second grade teacher, on the company's Web site. Airborne is in the market for $180 million in bank loans.

Talk about self-analysis ... Moody's Investors Service now offers a ratings calculation tool for its joint-default analysis.

Trading in second-lien loans is becoming increasingly difficult as the spreads on some of the loans are perceived as too narrow.