SRP Digest: Flurry of activity

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The Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) has appointed Darren Yip as its new group executive, markets, effective 13 March 2023.

Based in Sidney, Yip will be responsible for the largest business line among ASX’s four divisions and reports to Helen Lofthouse who was promoted to the CEO role last August. Yip replaces the two acting markets co-heads, Jamie Crank and Fiona Tramontana, who will remain on the markets management team as they return to their roles leading the trading and rates teams respectively.

Until not so long ago, 10 years was the shortest tenor for principal-protected funds in Japanese Yen - Tomoyuki Sasai, Credit Suisse

Equity derivatives clearing platform Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) has announced the appointment of Joseph Lewis, as managing director, co-head of corporate hedging and FX solutions at Jefferies, to its board of directors. Lewis who will fill a vacancy left in January 2023 has more than 20 years of experience in interest rate and foreign exchange derivatives including senior client coverage roles at Citibank, Barclays, and Lehman Brothers focused on interest rate, commodity and foreign exchange derivatives.

An exclusive piece of news came from Credit Suisse, which has partnered with T&D Asset Management to launch a retail structured fund tracking the Credit Suisse Ravenpack Macro Trend JPY Index.

With a three-year tenor, the Credit Suisse Corporate Bond/Big Data Multi Asset Strategy Fund (クレディ・スイス社債/ビッグデータ・マルチアセット戦略ファンド) will be traded on 31 March following a one-month sales window. It will invest in JPY-denominated bonds issued by Credit Suisse and offers a fixed coupon on a yearly basis as well as a conditional coupon linked to the cumulative return of the reference index upon maturity.

The product offers 100% capital protection unless the bond issuer default or early redemption occurs.

"Interest rates have been very low in Japan for an extended period, thus making principal protection in Japanese Yen challenging, especially for shorter term products," Tomoyuki Sasai, head of solutions for Japan at Credit Suisse, told SRP. "Until not so long ago, 10 years was the shortest tenor for principal-protected funds in Japanese Yen."

Barclays has reported group income of £5.8 billion (US$7 billion) in the fourth quarter of 2022 – an increase of 12% year-on-year (YoY). For full year 2022, group income stood at £25 billion – up 14% YoY, with momentum across all operating divisions and the benefit from FX. Income for the corporate and investment bank (CIB) increased by eight percent; the best full year for both global markets and fixed income, currencies and commodities. Group operating expenses were £16.7 billion, reflecting £1.6 billion of litigation and conduct charges, primarily driven by the over-issuance of securities. In March 2022, Barclays suspended the sale of structured notes and exchange-traded notes after it became aware that it had issued securities in excess of the amount registered under its shelf registration statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2018 and 2019.

Reported net profit at HSBC continued to increase in 2022, reaching US$16.7 billion including a US$2.2 billion credit arising from the recognition of a deferred tax asset – the bank’s profit was up 13.6% year-on-year (YoY), according to the bank's 2022 annual report.

Reported revenue grew four percent to US$51.7 billion, driven by ‘strong growth in net interest income, with increases in all of [its] global businesses, and higher revenue from global foreign exchange in global banking and markets,’ the report shows.

The UK bank posted structured notes measured at fair value of US$10.4 billion, 32.4% higher from a year ago. By underlying, equities contributed US$6.8 billion, or 65.4% of the total, while FX accounted for US$2.7 billion.