During Korn Chatikavanij’s walkabout in Samut Sakhon, a tough fishing town a few hours west of Bangkok, security is light for such a high-profile minister of state at this difficult and dangerous time for his country.

At the annual Mansion House dinner on Wednesday George Osborne signalled the closure of the FSA and the transfer of its responsibilities to “a new prudential regulator, which will operate as a subsidiary of the Bank of England.”

Shariah banking is becoming big business in Southeast Asia, with Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta battling for the title of regional Islamic finance centre. But even the most optimistic bankers fear further expansion could be stymied by arcane regulation and lack of cross-border consensus. Eric Ellis reports.

Regulators and legislators are rattling their sabres about the demise of privately negotiated derivatives markets. End users – especially corporates – and some on the sell side are not sure they have weighed up the situation appropriately. Hamish Risk reports.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the changing nature of the interbank market, liquidity has returned to most corners of foreign exchange. But uncertainties remain over quantitative easing, Japan and the recovery. The panel gathered at the end of 2009 to find we are still in uncharted territory.

Tops and bottoms can make you realise service levels are rotten. My old mucker Paolo has been on to me again (see Retail rip off). If he takes his complaint further, we could soon see the first punishment handed out for breaching Mifid, which came into force in November 2007 and should ensure best execution for investors.

Several sources contacted me asking what I thought about ‘the biggest story to hit FX since, well, the last one’.

When it comes to FX, the banks are still able to stripe up their clients in small amounts. An old mucker of mine told me of another example recently, which occurred after he bought some Canadian-listed shares through a well known stockbroker. The FX transaction was done some way below the low of the day, which seemed odd, given that it was a securities related transaction and therefore supposedly covered by MiFID. Most investors tolerate a small spread being added for non-market amounts, but it still seems that, in the UK at least, Johnny Retail Punter is getting royally ripped off.

The sub-prime crisis has presented opportunities for institutions whose balance sheets have been left relatively intact to boost their trading operations, not least in foreign exchange. Several, such as Canada’s CIBC and Japan’s Nomura, have already started to build out their FX businesses, while the market is still waiting to see how existing heavyweights HSBC and JPMorgan will evolve. BNP Paribas is another player that market participants might be wise to watch.

The focus on credit, as well as a degree of regulatory uncertainty, appears to have led to an increase in the importance of sales to financial institutions, according to sources at major FX houses. The reasoning is that banks are happy to assume counterparty risk with other banks and FIs, particularly in emerging markets, but less willing to trade directly with buy-side counterparties. Another issue is the uncertainty surrounding the legitimacy of some derivative products – whether or not they have been missold has led banks to effectively seek to have credit disintermediated.

A wave of regulation following the initial impact of the global financial crisis has targeted the alternative investment sector, and hedge funds in particular. The industry is mobilising to influence and deflect some of the measures. Caroline Allen reports

Xetra International Market, Deutsche Börse’s new pan-European foray, will launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Xetra will enable trading participants in 19 European countries to deal in European blue-chip corporates while settling domestically.

The imposition of a more stringent global regulatory regime for all financial markets is the talk of the town at the moment. So it is somewhat surprising to discover that the implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) in the EU in November 2007 resulted in a huge decrease in the number of FX brokers registered with the FSA.

The imposition of a more stringent global regulatory regime for all financial markets is the talk of the town at the moment. So it is somewhat surprising to discover that the implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in the EU in November 2007 resulted in a huge decrease in the number of FX brokers registered with the FSA.

Agency brokers have returned to fixed income just as investment banks have withdrawn from the market. Will they be able to create dark pools of liquidity and repair the breach in the distribution of debt securities? And does their increasing power herald the return of the primacy of relationships?

The proliferation of alternative trading venues in Europe has vastly complicated the task of achieving best execution.

Multilateral trading facilities have been gaining market share in recent months but the market itself has been shrinking. MTFs’ conspicuous success is also attracting some unwanted attention.

Exchanges try to steal a march on their rivals.

For years the debate raged about when FX would embrace a model like the equity market and move on to a centralised exchange. For a time, I subscribed to this view, especially around the time I tried somewhat cheekily to buy EBS – but that’s another story.

New governor Boediono has to put the central bank back on track as a corruption trial looms over a previous incumbent.

Prime brokers' relationships with hedge funds have inevitably be modified by the credit crunch but ultimately the brokers have to provide the full range of services funds require at a reasonable cost and without undue constraints.

New entrant aims for a big splash in dark pools but Nasdaq OMX and Bats are close behind, and Baikal promises intelligent order matching.

Last month Euromoney wrote about how the valuations service sector was heating up. Financial data provider Markit subsequently announced a new multi-dealer valuations platform. Chief executive Lance Uggla explains to Alex Chambers how the firm is broadening its offerings from credit to OTC equities.

Accusations of sharp practice are flying as the loan market struggles to deal with its problems.

Even though spreads for most foreign exchange products are often so thin that they barely exist, the use of transaction cost analysis (TCA) to measure execution is on the increase.

The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the French regulator, has recently decreed that financial institutions must include the currency amount for settlement when they report their transactions. Under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid), firms must include the settlement amount for all securities-related transactions.

Since launching in 2007, Chi-X, the pan-European multilateral trading facility run by Nomura’s Instinet, has made notable inroads into the market for trading German stocks, regularly trading more than 15% of the daily turnover of blue-chip companies such as BASF. At the same time, however, Xetra, Deutsche Börse’s order book, has increased its market share of domestic trading to a record 99%.

Last month the panel examined volatility and the reported demise of the dollar. This month, they discuss the merits of prime brokerage, the weakness of algos and how to generate alpha.

Ruling Citi would be like ruling the Forbidden City. There is so much breadth to the institution that it would be hard for any one individual to span the various sectors: investment banking, consumer banking, wealth management and retail brokerage. And as for structure, I’ve had mud baths that are more transparent.

The year of the MTF?