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The Iranian authorities’ recent granting of operating licences to two new private banks (Bank Sarmaye Daneshgah and Bank Pasargeda) suggests that the sector has a future, despite president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparent disdain for his predecessor’s reformist agenda.

The sale of Hotspot has prompted a torrent of speculation about the future of other ECNs. But it seems the rumours about new owners for FXall are true.

Cheyne Capital Management sold one of the largest-ever European arbitrage CLOs last month via Nomura. The €1 billion Cheyne Credit Opportunity CDO 1 incorporated several structural features to overcome problems that could arise from its relatively large size. In contrast to typical CLOs, which are normally half the size, 40% ramped up at launch and have around a year to complete sourcing loans, Cheyne Credit Opportunity has a two-year time period to ramp up fully. This extra flexibility will be particularly useful. The competition for leveraged loans will be greater than ever, given that an estimated 35 CLOs are operating this year, compared with about 25 last year.

Dave Tait has not only had a long and successful career in the FX market, but he has also climbed some notable peaks outside of the trading environment.

The FSA took a couple of years but the UK regulator has finally accepted the concept of covered bonds; the Netherlands will be next.

Rio de Janeiro now offers a developing market alternative to Chicago.

Government rumoured to be planning new bond deal although holdouts issue remains unresolved.

Hedge fund managers are increasingly shopping around and using more than one prime broker at the same time.

Latin America’s development bank has to change tack as countries in the region rely less on dollar funding.

Barclays believes there’s plenty of room for growth, helped by streaming prices on its own trading platform.

Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking has appointed Serge Topolanski as its deputy head of Europe and Asia global foreign exchange activities. Topolanski, who is based in Paris, will supervise the global foreign exchange French team and the overall FX options business. He reports to Lars Hakanson, head of global foreign exchange activities, Europe and Asia.

Regulators outnumbered the regulated at a meeting at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on February 16. Representatives of 15 bank and securities regulators and exchanges were relieved to hear that the world’s 14 largest credit derivatives dealers had fulfilled their promise, made last October, to cut by 30% the number of credit derivatives trades remaining unconfirmed for 30 days or more by January 31 2006. The backlog, which arose from high-velocity trading and assignment by hedge funds in a market with underdeveloped systems for initial confirmation of trade details, had sparked widespread alarm across the industry. More good news: electronic confirmation has risen to 62% of trade volume, from 46% in September 2005.