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.