NAB gears up for forex options restart

National Australia Bank (NAB) has made two senior derivatives trading appointments in preparation for the future reopening of its forex options desk. The desk closed early last year following a trading scandal.

Clifford Bayne was named Sydney-based head of foreign exchange options for Australia in late February, and Andrew Clark has already started in London as head of foreign exchange options for Europe. Both report to Jeff Lee, global head of foreign exchange, in Sydney.

Bayne comes to the Australian bank from his post as a senior forex options trader at ABN Amro in Singapore. Clark joins from JP Morgan Chase where he was vice-president of the bank’s forex and commodity options group in London.

But an NAB spokeswoman in Melbourne told RiskNews that although the bank is gearing up to relaunch its options desk, it is impossible to say exactly when the business will recommence. She explained that NAB has worked through around 90% of the improvements demanded by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (Apra) following the trading debacle. But the regulator still needs to give a final go-ahead.

Apra originally closed the desk in March, 2004 after savaging NAB in a report on the A$360 million ($280 million) rogue trading incident.