For all the fragmentation in the FX market, the top four banks further consolidated their dominance of customer business, according to the 2013 Euromoney foreign exchange survey. As volumes rise again in FX, volatility returns and banks’ earnings from it recover, margins are still compressing. Customers are focused on cutting transaction costs. Banks face big demands on scarce IT resources.

Deutsche Bank’s belated battle to boost its equity position underscores growing capital pains for global banks just as regulators in the US, and possibly UK, appear to be fighting tooth and nail for a sharper leverage ratio to reduce systemic banking risks.

Forget about global financial flows for a minute, think about stock. The global stock of bonds, loans and shares has almost doubled since 2000 to $209 trillion, according to Deutsche Bank.

Euromoney hopes that, of all bankers, Santa was kind to Stefan Krause and that the chief financial officer of Deutsche Bank had a particularly good Christmas break.

Against this opaque backdrop, Deutsche Bank seems to be tripping over its own toenails. I admit that during the financial crisis I was one of the few journalists who was critical of the good ship DB. I didn’t like the fact that shortly after Lehman’s collapse, Deutsche posted a surprise third-quarter profit by reclassifying some €25 billion of trading assets under new accounting rules. I also couldn’t understand how a house that had been so big in complex derivative products did not need to raise more capital – although Deutsche did eventually raise capital in late 2010 in association with the takeover of Deutsche Postbank.

Deutsche Bank, the world’s number-one FX bank for the past eight years, has made changes to its FX management committee after the departure of Greg Knight, head of its FX leveraged trading group and co-head of its spot execution business.

Chinese authorities are likely to widen the trading band on the USD/CNY in 2013, as the country seeks to further internationalize its currency with a series of measures to increase the momentum towards the full liberalization of its capital account, according to Deutsche Bank.

Commissions and complexity have developed an inverse relationship in the European equities market.

Zar Amrolia, who has led Deutsche Bank’s FX division to the number-one position in the Euromoney FX survey for the past eight years, has been promoted to co-head the bank’s newly created fixed income and currencies (FIC) group, as it seeks to broaden electronic trading across all asset classes.

BNP Paribas has recruited a Deutsche Bank FX salesman, according to people familiar with the situation.

Jain and Fitschen will hope to find new strength around a core of fixed income, transaction banking and AWM.

Deutsche set for heavy cost-cutting; Sets new 12% ROE target

Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Barclays continue to slug it out at the top of the market-share tables for crisis-hit credit trading. But when it comes to quality over quantity, RBC Capital Markets is the firm to watch.

Top-ranked foreign exchange house Deutsche Bank aims to consolidate its leadership with a new twist on APIs. Rivals say the development is spin rather than substance. In a market where technology plays such a vital role, they’ll be hoping they’re right.

The Wall Street Journal today reported that futures exchange Deutsche Börse is considering relaunching currency futures in a bid to outmanoeuvre its long-term rival, the CME, which last month launched its European exchange, saying it would lead off with currency futures itself. To say Deutsche Börse is merely being reactive would be off the mark, however.

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, was on fighting form this week on a trip to London, triggering a wave of short covering in EURUSD.

In July Euromoney’s 2012 Awards for Excellence dinner in London was attended by 500 people. The evening raised £482,595 for Amref and Orbis, charities working towards eliminating blinding trachoma in the south Omo area of southern Ethiopia

Autobahn app store opened; Offers tailored solutions for all clients

Deutsche Bank has launched the next generation of its Autobahn – the FX platform that revolutionized electronic trading in the past decade – which it says will redefine the way trading is conducted with its clients.

Deutsche Bank has hired two senior FX salespeople in Asia to service Japanese corporates – one from Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) and the other from JPMorgan, a bank spokesman confirms.

Structuring novel trades in volatile markets separates the bank from the risk crowd.

Santander and Deutsche win main prizes at Euromoney’s Awards for excellence; Standard Chartered’s Sands named Banker of the year; Banks raise £482,595 for charity project in Ethiopia

Deutsche Bank has grown from being a top-three global markets trader into a top-three global corporate finance house as well: a powerful combination whose architect, Anshu Jain, now hands over to two successors to guide through its most testing period. Deutsche is the master of markets so broken and illiquid that high share is almost a curse, not a blessing. But if better times lie ahead, it will reap rich rewards.

Barclays has hired a senior trader from Deutsche Bank for its emerging markets spot desk, according to two people familiar with the situation.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man: Henry Cai, Deutsche Bank’s chairman of investment banking in China, talks exclusively to Euromoney about Chinese growth, the perils of drinking too much, working hard, and how he plans to help the bank achieve its lofty ambitions in Asian equities.

Two years ago, Deutsche Bank beat a host of rival suitors to secure the services of China rainmaker Henry Cai. His task: to make the bank punch harder in the lucrative Asian equities business. Progress has been made, but does Deutsche have what it takes to reach the summit in Asia?

Deutsche Bank has announced a series of promotions in its corporate bank and securities division in Asia, after Alan Cloete and Gunit Chadha, the bank’s new Asia Pacific chief executives, took their posts last week.

An institutional FX salesperson at Deutsche Bank has left the firm, according to sources who have spoken to EuromoneyFXNews.

Deutsche Bank has abandoned the bullish stance on the yen it has held since the onset of the financial crisis in late 2008.

Citi remains the FX bank with the most wind in its sails and is now breathing down the neck of top-placed Deutsche Bank.