Swiss private bank receives top accolade

Credit Suisse has been recognized as having the "Best Private Banking Services Overall" by Euromoney magazine, a leading publication for the global banking and capital markets. This accolade, as well as the other country awards received by Credit Suisse, are based on the results of the Euromoney Private Banking Survey 2010. Commenting on the awards, Walter Berchtold, Chief Executive Officer of Private Banking at Credit Suisse, said: "We are proud to be recognized by Euromoney. Credit Suisse strives to be a trusted financial partner, helping our clients thrive by identifying, understanding and satisfying their requirements. These awards recognize the strength of our integrated banking business, our global reach and the commitment and expertise we have delivered to our clients." In addition to the global award, the Euromoney survey also recognizes Credit Suisse for having the "Best Private Banking Services Overall" in Western Europe, Guernsey, Indonesia, Russia, Singapore and Switzerland. The annual Euromoney rankings are based on a qualitative and quantitative review of the best services in private banking by markets and by areas of service. The survey also includes competitors' perceptions of the best-performing providers in defined client and product services.

Credit derivatives inventor to oversee AIG risk

American International Group has announced that Peter D. Hancock will join AIG as Executive Vice President, Finance, Risk, and Investments. In this new position, reporting to AIG President and Chief Executive Officer Robert H. Benmosche, Mr. Hancock will oversee Finance, Risk, Audit, Investments, Strategic Planning, and AIG Financial Products Corp."I am very pleased that Peter, a recognized expert in risk and finance, will be joining AIG in this important new role. Over the last several weeks, a number of well-respected, seasoned executives have voted with their feet in our team's unwavering commitment to repay taxpayers and create a real future for this great company," Mr. Benmosche said. "Peter's comprehensive experience in financial services will help accelerate our existing team's efforts toward AIG's re-emergence as a strong, independent company."Mr. Hancock has spent his entire career in financial services, including 20 years at J.P. Morgan, where he established the Global Derivatives Group, ran the Global Fixed Income Business and Global Credit Portfolio, and served as the firm's Chief Financial Officer and Chairman of its Risk Management Committee. Mr. Hancock later co-founded Integrated Finance Limited, an advisory firm specializing in strategic risk management, asset management, and innovative pension solutions. Most recently, he served as Vice Chairman of KeyCorp, responsible for Key National Banking."I look forward to joining the first class leadership team at AIG dedicated to restoring AIG to health for the benefit of all its stakeholders," Mr. Hancock said.

ASB Bank live on Calypso

Calypso Technology, a global application software provider of an integrated trading, risk and processing platform to financial institutions and corporate treasuries, today announced that ASB Bank, a leading New Zealand institution, has successfully implemented the second phase of the Calypso project to go live on its cross-asset, front-to-back treasury platform for foreign exchange, money market, interest rate derivatives, and risk, including limit management, enterprise risk, VaR and market risk.ASB was seeking a single, complete solution to support all treasury functions and to expose more treasury capability via the Bank's internal portal, FastNet. Calypso was chosen for its ability to streamline the Bank's entire financial markets trading and post-trade processing activities. The first phase of the project included end-to-end processing for forward rate agreements and futures as well as limits management. The second phase, including foreign exchange, went live in November 2009.ASB leveraged Calypso's market standard based solution, Calypso Fast-Track to accelerate the deployment of the trading, risk and operations application. Calypso Fast-Track provided ASB with a pre-configured database and associated process documentation. ASB was then able to focus more attention on their unique products and processes, interfaces and data migration rather than the mechanics of simply getting the application up and running."Choosing Calypso was a strategic decision for us", says Kerry Francis, Chief Executive of Treasury and Financial Markets. "By implementing Calypso, we now have sophisticated trading capabilities across a number of asset classes while benefiting from the efficiencies of centralized workflow."Guy Curtis, Head of Treasury and Financial Markets Operations, ASB, added, "We have increased our STP rates significantly and this achievement is testament to the strength of our partnership.""We are delighted to be working with ASB to support the Bank's treasury operations. Australia and New Zealand continue to be important areas of growth for Calypso, and we look forward to growing our presence and client base in the region," states Charles Marston, Chairman and CEO of Calypso.

Swiss bank's US wealth mgmt unit reorganizes

UBS's Wealth Management Americas division, aiming to bolster the Swiss bank's brokerage, today internally announced significant management changes on top of a substantial reorganization: It consolidated three brokerage regions into two, named a new head of private wealth management, and it also introduced the newly-created head of strategic client relationships, Registered Rep. has learned exclusively. At the same time, the UBS division--anxious to put a troubled financial past behind it as CEO Bob McCann promotes a turnaround strategy expected to be rolled out by early March--also named a new head of National Sales, as well as a new chief who will oversee the "emerging affluent section."

RBI withdraws short-term forex borrowings by NBFCs, HFCs

The Reserve Bank of India has withdrawn another stimulus measure as it scrapped the facility of short-term foreign currency borrowings for non-banking finance companies and housing finance companies. The facility stands withdrawn with immediate effect.
Explaining the move the Central bank said, "The decision has been taken after a review of the prevailing macroeconomic conditions and improvements in the domestic credit and liquidity conditions."
The central bank had decided to allow non-banking finance companies which do not take deposits to raise short-term foreign currency loans for refinancing their short-term liabilities on October 31, 2008 and housing finance companies on November 17, 2008.
The loans however could not exceed 50 per cent of the net owned funds or US $ 10 million, whichever was higher. These loans could be for a maximum period of three years and their cost was not to exceed a maximum of 200 basis points above London Inter Bank Offered Rate
RBI had to take the step to help bring more liquidity in the market as NBFCs were facing a severe cash crunch in September-October 2008 due to the global financial crisis.
In its policy review in October 2009 the central bank started withdrawing expansionary measures which were taken when the global crisis hit India's economy and affected liquidity in the country. However at the time the RBI did not change its key policy rates.
RBI withdrew a special repurchase facility for bank and another similar facility for non-bank financial companies, mutual funds and housing finance companies. A foreign exchange swap facility for banks was also withdrawn.
RBI also cut an export credit refinance facility to 15 per cent from 50 per cent in October 2009. In policy review on January 29, RBI raised cash reserve ratio by 75 basis points to control excess liquidity and handle inflation.