Barclays Capital boosts credit derivatives effort

Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank, has appointed Andrew Whittle, ex-head of European credit derivatives at Bear Stearns, to a newly created position as European head of credit derivatives.

Whittle, who starts today, will be based in London, but will report to Vince Balducci, Barclays Capital's global head of risk finance, based in the US.Whittle will be responsible for synthetic collateralised debt obligations, first-to-default baskets, repackagings, single-name default swaps and other credit derivatives products.

Barclays has also hired Despina Pantopoulou as global head of forex options (See: Barclays appoints global head of foreign exchange options).