We try to pretend that other magazines don’t exist. So it was a pleasure to have our illusions shattered at the Waldorf at The Banker’s awards last Thursday evening.
An enjoyable and decorous evening was had by all, without even a glimpse of the vodka luge with which Euromoney propels its awards evenings. By a remarkable coincidence, the only FX prize was won by the hosts of the table at which we were sitting.
BNP Paribas’ head of FX structuring (EMEA), James Davison, went up to collect the award for most innovative bank for foreign exchange, 2010. theweeklyFiX’s Alex Fletcher (below) managed to get herself snapped with the proud recipient and his award.
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RBS and Barclays were also shortlisted for the prize.
The Banker says that BNP Paribas “were the first bank to be able to offer clients options on swap points, enabling them to better manage the swap point risk inherent in forward FX.”
That was a long time coming: I’m not saying it’s a solution without a problem –it might even be handy if you were pricing a bid for the Single Farm Payment orders – but options on forward points are something the market has been trying to model for 20 years. The main problem is, of course, that outright FX is 99.9% correlated with the spot.
So, congratulations to BNP Paribas in finally untying that knot; and congratulations for being FX’s sole standard-bearer among the investment bankers.