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Reflecting growing investor interest in the emerging markets, Standard Chartered has started to offer automated electronic trading of non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) on its proprietary platform Straight2Bank Web, as well as through FXall. According to the bank, the new service provides automated pricing, automatic calculation and then confirmation of fixing dates. The bank describes the move as a significant market development.

Compagnie Financière Tradition has sold its TradIndex spread betting and CFD operation to it management. The broker announced as far back as last December that it was looking to offload the subsidiary, founded in 2002, as it was no longer seen as part of its core business. The spread better, which mainly caters for the UK market, has been acquired for an undisclosed sum by founder Robin Houldsworth and Peter Shalson. Houldsworth remains chief executive of Tradition UK.

Deutsche Bank has poached Dierk Reuter from Goldman Sachs as its new global head of e-commerce and algorithmic trading. Reuter was previously a managing director at Goldman Sachs in its equity algo business, although he also has extensive knowledge of FX. He was seconded to FXall by Goldman Sachs as its chief technology officer when the multi-bank portal launched.

Barclays has boosted its emerging market desk with the hire of Gary Hawkins from ABN Amro. Hawkins spent 12 years at ABN Amro, most recently as head of local markets trading at the bank that is soon to be no more and that was nearly bought by Barclays, funnily enough.

One of the more colourful characters from my days at the old Midland Bank has resurfaced at Standard Chartered Bank. Roger Woodbridge started on September 1 as the bank’s global markets head in Nigeria. His brief is to develop what is seen as one of StanChart’s most up and coming African markets, using his considerable experience. Someone at StanChart tells me that Roger has helped “launch the secondary market in repos, extend the FX forward market from one month to one year and introduce derivative-based products on the more liquid underlying markets. He has become a Central Bank of Nigeria advisor. As well as our trading operations, he is responsible for (our) corporate finance and capital markets in Nigeria. We see huge potential in Nigeria and significant dealing room expansion.” Expect him to also try and corner some government bond auctions in the near future as well.

UBS Investment Bank has finalized the organizational changes to its fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) business which started in October. André Esteves remains as global head of FICC, a role he assumed after the bank merged fixed income business with its money markets, currencies and commodities (MCC) unit.

For the first time ever, CLS has settled more than 1 million payment instructions in one day. The landmark came on Tuesday, following the US Veterans’ Day public holiday, which meant two days’ worth of business had to be settled. CLS says it made 1,140,644 payments, beating the previous record of 905,478. So far through November, CLS is settling an average of 492,000 instructions a day. It adds that user participation is also growing and that it now has more than 2,000 third-party clients.

A rebound in stock prices after several days of falls could signal a change in mood, but we doubt it as the underlying US economic problems are far from resolved.

China-Middle East investment links: Opening up the oil road

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You just can’t keep Saxo Bank out of the news.

Nick Crawford has rejoined the market after a lengthy spell of gardening leave. Crawford, who left his role as global co-head of trading at Merrill Lynch in the summer of 2006, started a couple of weeks ago at UniCredit in New York. His current position is head of fixed income, currencies and commodities NY. When he starts as global head of trading in January, he will report to Dan O’Sullivan and Ben Welsh, the bank’s global co-head of FICC.