Few people are as expert at generating publicity as Richard Branson. This week, he launched Virgin Racing to compete in that supposed sport called Formula 1. Cyprus-based trading platform FxPro has decided to sponsor the team.

It’s incredible that 12 months ago I was writing about how 2008 had been a bad year to have a good year. From where I sit, it doesn’t look like 2009 has been much better. Even though volumes have dropped this year – the consensus is that turnover is down around 30% – FX has continued to remain a profitable business for many.

Icap has alerted clients of its plans to launch a pilot of what it calls EBS Smalls on December 21

It was a tough call: which gratuitous headline should I lead with lead this week? Euro slides on Greece was one; Dubai built on sand another. But with bankers’ remuneration such a touchy subject – and the UK seemingly in the lead in punishing them for their misdemeanours – there was only one candidate. The thinking seems to run that the bankers (in itself a new swear word) are wholly responsible for the economic meltdown of the last couple of years; and so, as they have cost taxpayers a fortune, there is no way they should be rewarded.

Icap held its annual charity day on Wednesday. As ever, this gave its staff around the world an opportunity to dress up in bizarre costumes for a raft of good causes. I was lucky enough to be invited to the proceedings at the company’s London offices, though it was quite disconcerting to be met by a bloke dressed in full rubber bondage gear. Apparently the individual concerned, a member of Icap’s spot voice broking team, hadn’t even hired the costume. That’s a particularly unpleasant mental image.

MIG Investments has become the first of the once-unregulated Swiss FX trading platforms to obtain its banking licence. Switzerland has taken real steps to clean up once-shady retail and ruled on April 1 that companies would require a banking licence. Naturally MIG Bank, as it is now known, is delighted to have been granted its licence, especially as a spokesman for the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority says that he does not anticipate any more grants of approval in the near future.

ICE Futures has reported another record day’s trading of its USD Index futures. A total of 74,562 contracts, worth a notional $5.6 billion, changed hands on Wednesday, beating the previous record of 54,625 contracts established as recently as last Friday.

Meanwhile the International Securities Exchange (ISE) – not to be confused with ICE – has announced some enhancements to its suite of FX products. The exchange will introduce penny strikes for each expiration month, which will create deep in-the-money call options for all of its currency pairs, it says. This will effectively give investors more direct exposure to spot moves. It also adds options on the Brazilian real (USD/BRL).

Citi has added new charting functionality to its CitiFX Pro retail platform. The system will allow CitiFX Pro users to set up alerts when chart levels are broken. “Automatic pattern recognition is a service that traders value a great deal,” says Sanjay Madgavkar, head of CitiFX Pro.

CLS Bank says its average daily volume in November was 648,217 payment instructions, down 3.6% on the month but up 10.2% on November 2008. The average daily value for November was $3.66 trillion, down 2.7% on October but up 12.6% on November last year.

CME has announced that it has appointed industry veteran Otto Nageli as its chairman designate of CME Clearing Europe. Nageli, who was instrumental in the establishment of electronic trading, will serve as non-executive independent chairman of the board of CME Clearing Europe.

Nick Strain has left his role as Asian head of financial institution FX sales at RBS Singapore. Talk is that he’s off to Morgan Stanley Hong Kong.

Another departure from RBS this week is Luke Waddington. The fluent Japanese speaker had worked in prime services, although he was also apparently involved in e-commerce. Buzz is that he’s off to Standard Chartered Bank with a couple of colleagues.

The threat of more regulation is the biggest challenge facing FX at the moment. Recently, I was told by one senior figure that this is so worrying that the industry needs to form an association to lobby on its behalf.

A new report from the Conference Board – which tags itself as the global, independent business membership and research association that works in the public interest – suggests that the buy side is largely satisfied with the service and products provided by its FX sell-side counterparties. The report was due to be published in 2008, but the board felt that the findings needed to be further validated following the sharp rise in volatility as the financial crisis unfolded.

The CME saw a huge upswing in volumes in November – I have to assume that the same will prove true for EBS and Reuters, which had not sent me the figures at the time of writing. I guess it was taking them longer to count up all the numbers. Anyway, when the whistle blows, the train goes, so they have both missed out on a bit of free coverage this week.

Saxo Bank has entered into an agreement to buy E*Trade International’s local Nordic online trading business and online bank from E*Trade Nordic AB; this is an indirect subsidiary of US-based E*Trade Financial. The Nordic business includes client accounts in Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden and Norway.

I got sent a link to YouTube this week showing a clip from a programme that was made in the mid-1980s about FX. It’s an absolute cracker and has caused a bit of banter between some of us old gits. Talk is that Richard Hill, who is shown in all his pomp in the clip, is poised to make a comeback. There’s another clip showing his boss explaining that FX traders are washed up by 40 years old. Hill was 31 when the programme was made, so I reckon he must be about 55 now.

The somewhat confusingly named Interbank FX is opening an office in London to cater for the retail sector. “We find it paramount to provide the best possible trading experience for our customers,” says Todd Crosland, Interbank’s chairman.

It seems a strange time of the year for people to be moving, but there seem to be a few banks around willing to splash the cash. BNP Paribas looks like it will go for it in 2010 and has hired Marco Baggioli, who was head of FX prime brokerage sales Europe at Deutsche Bank. Baggioli will report to Joe Buthorn in the US and Francois Boisson in Europe.

Chetam Sennik has left his role at Credit Suisse where he was considered a bit of a star on exotic options. Word is he’s off to join a former colleague at a certain US bank. Credit Suisse has acted quickly though and poached Jon Irving from CIBC. It’s bonus day today at CIBC, so it seems an odd time for Irving to have quit, although having only been at the bank for a couple of months, he may have felt he wasn’t in line for much while Sennik’s departure from Credit Suisse has almost certainly freed up lots of cash for its bonus pool. Irving, who former colleagues say has a lot of potential, was made redundant earlier in the year by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Kate Lowe and Theresa Kwok are both on the move from JPMorgan, where they worked in FX prime brokerage. Chat is they are joining the wave of newcomers at Morgan Stanley.

Both the London Stock Exchange and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange announced the listing of currency-based products in November. The LSE listed 18 currency exchange traded funds. The ETCs were admitted to the exchange by ETF Securities, which is one of the world’s largest providers of commodity-based ETFs. The JSE has listed currency reference warrants, backed by Standard Bank, in what it said was a "response to the growing popularity of currency trading in South Africa".

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is believed to have hired Liam Hudson from Barclays NY, where he was a director of FX algorithmic execution. Rumour has it that he will be the bank’s new global head of FX e-trading.

Steve ‘Wham’ Braithwaite has resigned from his role as Saxo Bank’s head of FX and fixed-income trading and returned to his London roots as RBC Dexia’s global head of FX trading. Sources close to Braithwaite suggest that he had grown tired of the commute between London and Copenhagen and that he is looking forward to his new challenge.

Business model new to market; So valuation remains uncertain

HSBC, which aspires to be a top-three player in FX, is now taking steps to update its e-commerce offering. To that end, it has appointed Richard Anthony to the new role of head of e-risk of FX and metals. Anthony, who will start in January, was previously global head of e-FICC at Dresdner Kleinwort.

A year ago Citi was nowhere in rates, but a quick build-out under new management has helped it ride one of the most profitable waves of 2009.

After holding together through the worst of the sub-prime crisis, the wheels now appear to be falling off at Royal Bank of Scotland. The bank’s foreign exchange sales team has suffered a wave of senior departures since the resignation of Brad Leek, its global head of financial institutional FX sales, around the end of October. Following him out are Nick Greenland, global head of FX risk advisory, who is off to Credit Suisse; Stefano Lupi, head of FX investor sales, who is poised to join Santander; and Mathijs Peeters, who ran FX and fixed-income sales in the Netherlands and is believed to be joining Nomura.

Vendor TraderTools has promoted Yaacov Heidingsfeld to chief executive from his role as chief operating officer. Heidingsfeld replaces Martin Fawer, who will remain as chairman.