Monday 22 nd November 2010 Trading Places, November 22, 2010 Read this week's Trading Places to catch up on people moves across the FX world. Mandell joins StanChart Christiane Mandell started as head of financial institution sales for the Americas at Standard Chartered in New York on November 15. Mandell reports to Adam Freeman, regional head of financial markets sales in London, and Adrian Walkling, global head of financial institutions sales in Singapore. She also has a local reporting line to Mohammed Grimeh, head of Standard Chartered Securities. In this newly created role, Mandell is responsible for foreign exchange, rates, commodities and credit products sales across financial institutions in the US, Canada and Latin America. Mandell joined the bank from Royal Bank of Scotland in Stamford, Connecticut, where she was most recently head of global banking and markets for Latin America and Canada, and previously head of FX and local markets for the Americas. Prior to this, Mandell was global head of foreign exchange at Bank of America, where she worked for 18 years in different senior roles, including head of institutional sales for fixed income and head of electronic commerce (FX Week, August 20). "As financial institutions in the Americas increasingly look toward Asia, Africa and the Middle East for investment and trade opportunities, Chris and her team are ideally placed to leverage our deep presence and long history in those regions on behalf of our clients," said Walkling, in a prepared statement. TwoFour expands sales team Steven Dorlen has joined TwoFour's New York office as a new member of the consulting sales team. He reports locally to Stephen Fry, TwoFour's managing director. Dorlen joins from Hyatt Leader, a New York-based recruitment firm, where he was senior account manager. Before that, he was account manager at Princeton Information and Aetea Information Technology. Dorlen's hire follows TwoFour's recent appointment of Chris Steenbock and Chris Zaremba as sales managers for the Americas, and for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, respectively (FX Week, 7 June). Tuck joins Barclays Corporate in senior management restructure Matt Tuck has joined Barclays Corporate in London as head of financial institutions (FI), replacing Colin Nutt, who became vice-chairman at Barclays Corporate in July. Tuck starts at the bank in January and will report to Kevin Wall, head of client coverage at Barclays Corporate, locally.
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Transcript
Monday 22nd November 2010
Trading Places, November 22, 2010
Read this week's Trading Places to catch up on people moves across the FX world.
Mandell joins StanChart
Christiane Mandell started as head of financial institution sales for the Americas at Standard
Chartered in New York on November 15. Mandell reports to Adam Freeman, regional head of
financial markets sales in London, and Adrian Walkling, global head of financial institutions sales in
Singapore. She also has a local reporting line to Mohammed Grimeh, head of Standard Chartered
Securities. In this newly created role, Mandell is responsible for foreign exchange, rates,
commodities and credit products sales across financial institutions in the US, Canada and Latin
America.
Mandell joined the bank from Royal Bank of Scotland in Stamford, Connecticut, where she was most
recently head of global banking and markets for Latin America and Canada, and previously head of
FX and local markets for the Americas. Prior to this, Mandell was global head of foreign exchange at
Bank of America, where she worked for 18 years in different senior roles, including head of
institutional sales for fixed income and head of electronic commerce (FX Week, August 20).
"As financial institutions in the Americas increasingly look toward Asia, Africa and the Middle East for
investment and trade opportunities, Chris and her team are ideally placed to leverage our deep
presence and long history in those regions on behalf of our clients," said Walkling, in a prepared
statement.
TwoFour expands sales team
Steven Dorlen has joined TwoFour's New York office as a new member of the consulting sales team.
He reports locally to Stephen Fry, TwoFour's managing director. Dorlen joins from Hyatt Leader, a
New York-based recruitment firm, where he was senior account manager. Before that, he was
account manager at Princeton Information and Aetea Information Technology.
Dorlen's hire follows TwoFour's recent appointment of Chris Steenbock and Chris Zaremba as sales
managers for the Americas, and for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, respectively (FX Week, 7
June).
Tuck joins Barclays Corporate in senior management restructure
Matt Tuck has joined Barclays Corporate in London as head of financial institutions (FI), replacing
Colin Nutt, who became vice-chairman at Barclays Corporate in July.
Tuck starts at the bank in January and will report to Kevin Wall, head of client coverage at Barclays
Corporate, locally.
Tuck was most recently at Deutsche Bank, where he held roles as regional head of northern Europe,
cash management financial institutions and global co-head of cash management sales to non-bank
financial institutions from 2003. Prior to Deutsche, he held senior sales and operations positions at
Citi and JP Morgan.
In his new role, Tuck is responsible for exploring new opportunities for Barclays Corporate among
the Barclays Capital client base, particularly FI clients, as part of the closer working relationship
between the corporate and investment banks.
IPC hires Petrie as network operations chief
Richard Petrie has joined IPC Systems, as vice-president of network operations for the Europe, Africa
and Middle East region.
Based in London, Petrie is responsible for driving network growth and expansion strategy into
emerging markets as well as managing IPC's enhanced voice services and electronic connectivity
services.
He joins from London-based Colt Telecommunications, where he was head of product and solutions
services. Before this, he was the global head of network services for BGC Partners' electronic trading
system, eSpeed.
Bonde joins Nordea
Casper Bonde has joined Nordea in Copenhagen as senior sales manager of the fixed-income relative
value group, covering institutional clients on the asset liability management and relative value side.
He reports locally to Jacob Lester, director at Nordea. According to market sources he resigned from
JP Morgan before the summer, where he was an FX salesperson to Scandinavian institutions and
corporates for three years. He reported to London-based Thomas Christensen, executive director. It
is not known whether he has been replaced. JP Morgan and Nordea declined to comment. Casper
could not be contacted.
Polidano surfaces at NAB
Dan Polidano has joined National Australia Bank (NAB) in Sydney, as a senior FX options trader.
Polidano joins from Crédit Agricole, where has worked as a director and senior FX options trader for
Asia since April, reporting to Steve Chan, head of FX options trading for Asia.
Prior to this, he was a director for G-10 vanilla FX options trading at Barclays Capital for three years.
He has also had senior roles at UBS in Singapore as a director in emerging Asia FX options trading,
and at ANZ in Melbourne as an FX options trader for five years (FX Week, May 3).
Digital Vega launches multibank FX options trading platform
LONDON - Digital Vega has become one of the first vendors to fill a gap in the market for a multi-
bank forex options trading platform, with the launch of Medusa last week.
Medusa is aimed at buy-side traders looking to trade FX option structures on prices from up to five
relationship‐based liquidity providers. The system supports trading in single options, straddles,
strangles and risk reversals.
The first transactions on Medusa were undertaken on November 11, by Pareto Investment
Management, owned by BNY Mellon Asset Management. The trades consisted of single options, in
AUD/USD in market amounts, said vendor officials.
Mark Suter, chief executive at Digital Vega in London, said the platform will have four banks pricing
into the platform in the next two to three weeks, with a further six coming on board in the early part
of next year. "They have confirmed interest in participating and once agreements are in place, they
will connect," he said.
"In a market environment where users increasingly require multiple, comparable quotes under
fiduciary regimes, we believe Medusa is a real step forward and will set new market standards in FX
options trading. We anticipate many market participants who are looking to benefit from simplicity,
transparency and liquidity in their trading, coming on board in the coming weeks."
Suter said the platform is also in the process of rollout with global asset managers, corporates,
hedge funds and regional banks. Trading can be accessed via graphical user interface or application
programming interface, with pricing in either premium or volatility terms, with or without delta
hedge with real‐time execution and confirmation.
The platform was developed jointly with software vendor Worldflow. It also has reporting tools for
buy‐ and sell‐side participants, enabling them to identify best execution as well as detailed client and
provider activity and service levels.
Officials said the platform has been integrated with the Traiana Harmony network, for real‐time
trade notifications, and position and exposure management tools.
Other vendors looking to take advantage of the increased need for automation in the options
market include GFI Fenics, which is in soft launch-phase with a multi-bank product, with more than
100 FXO trades executed in the past month, say market sources.
Market endorses 'elegant' CFTC proposal on margin
The Commodity Futures Exchange Commission (CFTC) tabled four proposals on segregation for client
margin in cleared over-the-counter derivatives trades, and early feedback from the industry
indicates a clear front-runner.
The so-called 'legally segregated/operationally commingled' approach, in which clients will have a
secured claim for the value of their collateral held in omnibus accounts at dealers – or futures
clearing merchants (FCMs) – is proving popular among buy-side and sell-side firms alike.
"The CFTC came up with a sensible structural compromise, incorporating this legal separateness but
physical commingling. I think that has virtues from both perspectives that would seem to provide a
nice solution," says one head of collateral management at a major investment bank.
"We think the CFTC's legally segregated/operationally commingled proposal is an elegant solution
that addresses the operational burden and still gives legal segregation – we support that," adds
Richard Prager, head of fixed-income trading at Blackrock in New York.
The issues relate to client clearing, in which FCMs act as intermediaries between clients and central
counterparties (CCPs), by passing along margin on the client's behalf. Under the current US model,
all client margin is placed in an omnibus account at the FCM, which will post margin to the CCP for a
group of clients on an aggregate basis.
This model makes it possible for members of the same omnibus account to suffer losses if the FCM
and one or more of its clients default simultaneously – a phenomenon known as risk mutualisation.
If the initial margin held by the CCP at that point is not enough to pay for the defaulted positions to
be exited or hedged, the clearer is entitled to make up the shortfall by taking margin out of the
dealer's omnibus client account – in other words, the initial margin of the non-defaulting clients.
This model has proved a success in the futures world, but some buy-side firms have said they would
not accept risk mutualisation in OTC clearing. The CFTC held an industry roundtable on October 22 to
discuss the issues before announcing today's proposals.
As well as the legally segregated/operationally commingled proposal, the CFTC also mooted
maintaining the current model; introducing a variation on the current model whereby CCPs could
only tap the omnibus account once the rest of its risk waterfall (including the guarantee fund and
the CCP's own contributions) has been exhausted; and what has become known as super-
segregation, in which each client would have its own segregated account at the CCP.
Some members of the buy-side want to avoid any approach under which some form of risk
mutualisation remains. Meanwhile, dealers have been keen to avoid a move towards super-
segregation, which they argue would be operationally burdensome and prohibitively expensive.
In brief, November 22, 2010
Blacktree hires Kalirai
Harvinder Kalirai has joined Blacktree, the London-based investment management firm. He reports
to Alexei Jiltsov, chief information officer and managing partner. Kalirai joins from BCA Research,
where he was managing director of foreign exchange strategy.
Previously, he was head of currency management at CIBC Global Asset Management and he has also
held senior positions at State Street Global Markets in London, Sydney and Boston.
Blacktree specialises in macro-systematic currency trading strategies and is headed by Jiltsov, Balraj
Bassi and Anne Sanciaume. Bassi and Kalirai previously worked together at State Street.
South Korea could crack down on FX derivatives
South Korea could possibly tighten its foreign exchange derivatives regulations, a senior government
official reportedly announced on November 16. The decision is dependent on the outcome of an
investigation into banks’ activities following growing fears of the threat posed by rapid foreign
capital flows.
“The capital flows issue is very important for a small and open economy such as South Korea,” said
Financial Supervisory Service governor Kim Jong-chang, according to Dow Jones. “Our investigation is
part of strengthening our oversight over the foreign exchange market... If we find improper [foreign-
exchange derivatives] trading we will issue sanctions, but we will also consider improving the
regulatory framework.”
The remarks come as Seoul is under pressure to contain the potentially destabilising effects of rapid
inflows and outflows of foreign capital.
Reval and FXall combine forex forces
Risk management solutions provider Reval has combined platforms with FXall to offer corporate
end-users of derivatives a web-based solution for FX trading, it announced last week. It offers users
FXall's reporting, control and settlement tools as well as the analytical tools of Reval's software-as-a-
service solution to manage their risk management process. Corporate FX traders can access two-way
executable prices from multiple counterparties through the Reval user interface, deal on a live price