Nick Downes will report to Stefan Hamberger, global head of electronic FIC sales, and will be based in London. A market veteran with 26 years of experience in the FX industry, Downes was most recently head of e-sales in the EMEA region for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which he joined in August 2010. Before that, he had stints with Citi and UBS, where he specialized in FX bank sales.
In March, Commerzbank unveiled its enhanced single-dealer platform Commander, which it claims offers the FX market’s first interactive structured-product portal. The most notable innovation, which the bank believes will differentiate Commander from its rivals, is the introduction of Kristall, a new FX structuring platform.
The bank plans to make its proprietary structured-product system available to clients over its portal, allowing them to communicate in real time with Commerzbank’s product specialists in London and Singapore, and share files with colleagues.
Commerzbank hopes this will help to demystify structured products, allowing clients to understand the process behind the deals, from pricing, to execution and confirmation. Commander also has a range of other new features, including streamed non-deliverable forwards and gold prices.
Commerzbank was ranked 15th in this year’s Euromoney FX survey, unchanged from the previous year. Its highest ranking was with banks, where it rose two places to ninth in the survey.
A Commerzbank spokesperson declined to comment.