UBS appears to be once again expanding its FX business with a series of senior appointments. Chris Vogelgesang, who spent 13 years at Merrill Lynch in senior roles before taking a break from the industry, has joined as global co-head of FX. Vogelgesang, who will be based in Zurich and report to Dimitri Psyllidis, shares the role with Singapore-based Arie Adler, who continues as head of FICC, Asia ex-Japan. Electronic trading pioneer Simon Wilson-Taylor, who left his role as head of State Street’s Global Link division in January, has also joined the bank as managing director and global head of e-commerce. He reports to Fabian Shey and is based in Stamford, Connecticut. UBS has also poached Andy Durrant from the CME in the new role of head of e-marketing in Europe. He will be based in London and report to Julian Wantling, co-head of FICC distribution, EMEA, as well as to Simon Wilson-Taylor.

Policymakers like to talk up the dollar. But an orderly decline of the greenback would be no bad thing.

A new ‘currency’ was launched in early September, when the WDX Organization used its synthetic Wocu – world currency unit – to trade on the Bordeaux Wine Exchange. The symbolic transaction will, WDX hopes, lead to swift acceptance and use of the Wocu as an international global unit of account. Ostensibly, the Wocu is little different from other basket products offered by numerous banks. Where it perhaps differs from bank offerings is in its independence. WDX has established an institute to ensure its integrity and it hopes that its proven low volatility – it has been back-tested over 10 years – will help to increase its chances of acceptance.

Citi’s leadership of Euromoney’s 2009 international cash management poll results was far from a given this year.

Regional and multi-regional cash management banks have a chance to expand their markets and force global providers to rethink what they offer. Will they seize their opportunity? Laurence Neville reports.

Governments and the broader public sector are increasingly seeking the sort of service improvements that can draw on cash management specialists’ expertise. Laurence Neville reports.

In another clear signal that it intends to build on its huge FX business, UBS has hired market veteran Dave Tait as its global head of proprietary trading. Tait – who as readers of the weeklyFiX will know has climbed Mount Everest three times – had a long and successful career on the sell side, including stints at Goldman Sachs and CSFB, before moving into the then fledgling hedge fund industry several years ago. He initially joined Bluecrest, before joining the ill-fated Peloton Partners. Until he was lured back to the sell side by UBS, he was trading at Citadel.

It only seems like yesterday that he was my trainee at RP Martins. Since then, he has retired from the market at least twice, but now I hear that Richard Gardner-Brown, known to all as Turdy (genuine nickname earnt in a long story from a less PC-world), is poised to make a comeback at Tullett Prebon. No word from the company on which desk, but my guess would on forward EURs. And they used to say broking was a young man’s game.

The ongoing row between BGC and Tullett Prebon is starting to make an Albanian blood feud look like a schoolboy spat.

I went to SunGard’s City Day conference in London recently. This used to be called the GL NET Forum and while not FX-specific, it is a great opportunity to catch up with old contacts and find out about the issues and developments in other markets. I firmly believe that keeping an eye on what is going on elsewhere facilitates understanding of what is happening closer to home.

As everyone now knows, there was a big EUR/GBP transaction done against the 1.15pm ECB fix on Wednesday. The deal was linked to the EU subsidy paid out to British farmers every year.

In a moment of pique – it sent me the press release two days after I’d read it elsewhere – I told Integral that I wasn’t going to cover the launch of its TrueFX platform. But having read it I really feel that I should, because if Integral is to be believed, then things are about to get very much better.

Marcus Browning is leaving London Diversified Fund Management and heading back to JPMorgan, the bank where he started his FX career many moons ago. Browning left the bank back in 2002 and has subsequently done stints at Merrill Lynch and Citi, before deciding to try his hand on the buy side. His departure from LDFM is understood to be extremely amicable. He is joining JPM’s prop trading group as a managing director and will report to Ray Eyles.

IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) has appointed Sir Callum McCarthy, former chairman of the UK’s Financial Services Authority, to its board. “We are very pleased to welcome Sir Callum as a member of the ICE board of directors. Sir Callum has tremendous managerial experience from banking and energy, to his leadership of the FSA. Our board and management team look forward to benefiting from his perspectives and expertise,” says Jeff Sprecher, ICE’s chief executive.

Multinational exchange NYSE Euronext has announced the appointment of Dominique Cerutti as deputy chief executive officer and global head of technology, effective year-end 2009 and pending regulatory approvals. He will also be appointed president of Euronext Paris and chairman of Euronext NV. Cerutti, who is currently general manager of IBM Southwest Europe, will report to Duncan Niederauer, NYSE Euronext’s chief executive. He replaces Jean-François Théodore, who is retiring.

It seems that Zeeshan Khan, who joined Standard Chartered as head of e-commerce earlier this year, is starting to make his presence felt. Well-placed sources say Khan put his 22 staff, who previously reported to Stamos Fokianos, on notice of redundancy. Most, including Fokianos, have now been let go. As a result, there has been a clear out in the bank’s electronic sales team – supposedly it has nothing to sell because of the bank’s weak e-commerce offering. No word from StanChart at the time of writing.

After what seems like a period of fire fighting, UBS appears to be expanding its FX business. Following on from last week’s news that it had hired Simon Wilson-Taylor as managing director and global head of e-commerce, sources say the bank has appointed Chris Vogelgesang as its global co-head of FX.

What baffles me is that two of Europe’s largest banks can be so difficult.

When it comes to FX, the banks are still able to stripe up their clients in small amounts. An old mucker of mine told me of another example recently, which occurred after he bought some Canadian-listed shares through a well known stockbroker. The FX transaction was done some way below the low of the day, which seemed odd, given that it was a securities related transaction and therefore supposedly covered by MiFID. Most investors tolerate a small spread being added for non-market amounts, but it still seems that, in the UK at least, Johnny Retail Punter is getting royally ripped off.

ICE Futures US says it will waive all exchange and clearing fees on the electronic trading of its FX contracts between October 1 and December 31. The move applies to the exchange’s 39 FX contracts, as well as its 12 ICE Millions futures, but not any EFP, EFS or block trades, nor its USD and EUR index contracts.

The Parker FX Index has reported a 0.11% fall in August. Of the 62 funds in the index, 27 reported a positive result, 34 racked up losses and one was flat. Performance ranged from a high of +6.08% to a low of –4.20%.

Deutsche Bank has launched a Ucits III compliant currency fund, which it says will provide institutional investors with access to broad FX market returns. The Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities – shortened to Ucits – compliance effectively means that the fund, called the DB Platinum Currency Returns Plus Fund, can be marketed in all 30 countries of the European Economic Area, though Deutsche says it will be initially available in Luxembourg, Germany and UK. The fund offers exposure to Deutsche’s Currency Returns + Index (DBCR+) and is available in EUR, USD and GBP.

There would appear to be growing demand for robust, transparent and ultimately investable FX indices. To tap into this potential, FTSE Group has just launched its first set of indices in its FTSE Currency Forward Rate Bias (FRB) Index Series in conjunction with Record Currency Management.

Another week, another deal for Saxo. The bank continues to expand its presence in France, this time through a deal with B* Capital, part of BNP Paribas, which has launched a white-labelled version of the SaxoTrader platform.

JPMorgan has made what it calls two major functionality upgrades to MorganDirect, its proprietary FX and rates trading platform. MorganDirect AlgoX provides a suite of tools for algorithmic order execution, while MorganDirect FX Options will introduce electronic pricing, analytics and execution for FX derivatives.

RBS has appointed Chris Leuschke as the global head of FX sales, including both corporate and institutional clients. “The FX business represents a core activity within the markets organisation and is a rapidly growing and changing discipline. If we look at the market, we see an increased focus on structured transactions, and if we look at clients, the traditional needs between corporate and FI clients are aligning,” says an internal memo from Gary Cottle, global head of corporate risk solutions sales, and Brian Reid, global head of institutional coverage, research and strategy. “Given this, we too need to change how we look at our product and our clients. For these reasons, we’ve asked Chris to build an integrated FX sales team focused on both flow and structured FX products across the client base. He will update you shortly on how his teams will be organised and what his next steps will be.” Inevitably, there will be some staff changes; the buzz is that some familiar and well-regarded faces will be seeking pastures new.

Simon Wilson-Taylor, who left his role as head of State Street’s Global Link division in January, has landed himself what looks like a very nice role at UBS. Wilson-Taylor started this week as managing director and global head of e-commerce, reporting to Fabian Shey, and based in Stamford. A bank spokesperson says that Wilson-Taylor will head its dedicated FICC e-commerce efforts, working closely with teams across sales, trading and IT.

Société Générale says it has made appointments in Paris and London to boost its global strategy and economic research teams. Klaus Baader, one time chief Europe economist at Merrill Lynch, has joined the economic research team in London, replacing Véronique Riches-Flores, who now becomes head of thematic research. This is a newly created role and will be based in Paris. Both Baader and Riches-Flores report to Benoît Hubaud, the bank’s deputy head of global research. Dylan Grice, co-founder of research firm Vequus, has joined the global strategy-alternative view team based in London. He reports to Albert Edwards, head of global strategy. Finally, David Mendez-Vives has joined from Mitsubishi UFJ Securities as an inflation-linked strategist. He will be based in Paris and report to Vincent Chaigneau, head of fixed income and FX strategy.

Continuity is a prerequisite of building a successful FX franchise, but I was still surprised to read such a strong endorsement of Zar Amrolia in Deutsche’s latest FX strategy weekly. “ZAR to remain in sweet spot for now,” the report said. “We remain bullish ZAR in the near term.” What I want to know is what sweet spot exactly is Zar in? And is that the reason the bank remains so bullish?