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Wilson Kamit, governor of the country's central bank, assesses finacial sector reforms.

Brazil Government Revenue Jumps

Russia Debt Payments, Turkey Bond Sale

Interest-rate trading has jumped in recent weeks in Korea as newer participants including securities houses and hedge funds ramp up activity. "This will be an amazing year," said a marketing head at a bulge bracket house, tipping volumes in the pure-won swap market to more than double last year's approximate USD400 million notional. The growing liquidity has seen bid-offer spreads on won swaps move in significantly. For instance last year 10-year swaps had a bid-offer spread around five to six basis points, which has now shrunk to one to two basis points.

Buying and selling options on variance has started in earnest, as the volatility environment is less certain and the instruments are becoming more widely traded. The structures, first traded just over a year ago (DW, 10/1/04) pay out the difference between the strike and the realized variance on a variance swap of the same maturity and size as the option. More trading also means the premiums for these exotic options are coming down, which makes them more attractive to buyers.

Markit Group, the credit research and pricing service, has made a trio of hires to support the launch of the ABX and CMBX indices. Ben Logan, ABS product manager, said the firm has made the hires to both help build out the indices and to market them to buy- and sell-side clients. Nathan Kirk, previously a salesman at Barclays Capital, comes on board as head of European ABS, responsible for managing its pricing service and sales to European clients. Keith Corr joins in New York from Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein to manage the ABX and CMBX indices. Logan said Markit has also added a junior analyst, Nick Fusco.

Bank of England chief calls for radical change at multilateral

Hong Kong Monetary Authority Focuses on Exchange Rate Stability

But 25% limit set to continue for foreign ownership of banks