News/Commodities
Trade associations launch IRB survey
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the Risk Management Association and the British Bankers' Association today launched a survey of the validation of banks' internal credit ratings, a key element underlying the internal ratings-based …
Trade associations launch IRB survey
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the Risk Management Association and the British Bankers' Association today launched a survey of the validation of banks' internal credit ratings, a key element underlying the internal ratings-based …
Hetco stops power trading
Hetco, the New York-based proprietary energy trading company, has closed its power trading desk. Hetco was created in 1997 as a joint venture between US oil major Amerada Hess and Stephen Hendel and Stephen Semlitz, two former partners of Goldman Sachs,…
Academic voices dissatisfaction with Basel II
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision still has a great deal of work to do before the Basel II capital accord can be successfully implemented at financial institutions, Jacques Pézier, director of the risk management group of the ISMA Centre at the…
Fitch to investigate credit derivatives risk concentrations
Credit rating agency Fitch Ratings is concerned that the rapid growth and lack of transparency in the synthetic credit markets could be leading to alarming concentrations of risk with specific market participants.
Japan's SMEs facing funding crisis
Japan's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are facing the worst funding crisis since the 1997/98 Asian financial meltdown, according Hiroshi Nakaso, associate director of the financial markets department at the Bank of Japan, speaking at Risk…
Sempra buys CMS' gas trading business
Sempra Energy Trading, the Connecticut-based gas, power and petroleum dealer, has bought the gas trading book of Michigan-based CMS Energy for $17 million, a Sempra spokesman confirmed today.
JP Morgan launches LSE-listed certificates
JP Morgan has launched the first listed certificates registered on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), targeted at retail investors. The move follows the launch in November of covered warrants in the UK.
Boston-based AIR releases new catastrophe models for Asia-Pacific
AIR Worldwide Corporation, the Boston-based catastrophe modelling and weather risk management company, today released new typhoon and earthquake models for the Asia-Pacific region. The new typhoon models include Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Philippines,…
Financial institutions ill equipped to deal with credit risk developments, says D’Silva
The changing attitudes to credit risk among banks amounts to a "cultural revolution", Adrian D'Silva, director of capital markets supervision for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, told delegates at a credit risk management conference in Vienna today…
Weather Board of Trade delays launch as problems mount
Atlanta-based Weather Board of Trade (WBOT), which was set for an October launch, will now only start trading exchange-based weather derivatives in February 2003. WBOT has also lost a number of its charter members, encountered problems with its fund…
Japan’s SMBC expects to issue synthetic CLO in early December
Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) is preparing to launch a synthetic balance-sheet collateralised loan obligation (CLO) referenced on ¥500 billion worth of loans extended to 1,500 Japanese small to medium-sized companies.
Basel II op risk charge will help tackle concerns, says McDonough
NEW YORK - Banking supervisors believe that a separate capital charge for operational risk under the Basel II capital rules will bolster efforts to find better ways of addressing concern about the operational hazards faced by banks, the world's chief…
Totem launches European power and gas valuation service
Totem Market Valuations, a UK-based provider of derivatives valuation services, has launched an over-the-counter European power and gas derivatives pricing service targeted at oil majors, merchant energy companies, banks and former state monopolies…
UK’s Centrica signs five-year, £40 million weather hedge
British Gas Trading, a subsidiary of UK energy company Centrica, has concluded a £40 million weather hedge with Bermuda-based XL Capital. The multi-year deal may prove the largest in Europe this year.
Spectron launches online weather trading
Energy market intermediary Spectron has launched an online platform for trading weather derivatives.
Citi to outsource e-liquidity
Citigroup has launched a unique liquidity outsourcing platform for foreign exchange, a senior forex official at Citigroup in New York told RiskNews ' sister publication FX Week .