Griffin originally joined Kepler in 2016 as its head of portfolio and electronic sales trading, later assuming his most recent role as head of market structure and liquidity solutions in 2022. He has an extensive trading career, joining the industry in 1999 as a product controller at Credit Suisse before moving into a series of arbitrage trading roles at Stafford Trading Europe and Nomura Securities.

Stephen Wilkes, the head of buy-side solutions sales and head of securities services at Deutsche Bank, will be departing his role after spending almost 13 years at the bank.  For nearly five years, Wilkes served as the head of buy-side solutions sales and head of securities services sales in the EMEA region. In addition to his role in buy-side solutions, Wilkes also led the sales team responsible for distributing the Deutsche Bank custody platform across the EMEA region for the corporate bank. 

Prior to his tenure at Deutsche Bank, Wilkes spent six years at JP Morgan as an executive director of futures and options and OTC clearing sales. Before that, he served as vice president and relationship manager for JP Morgan’s priority asset manager clients. Wilkes began his career as an account manager at Targetbase Claydon Heeley and also held a senior analyst position at Goldman Sachs. 

Jefferies appointed Peter Johansson as an equity sales trader. Before joining Jefferies, Johansson spent a decade at Nordea Markets, most recently as managing director, head of equity execution. Elsewhere in his tenure at Nordea Markets, Johansson held a sales trading position. Before joining Nordea Markets, Johansson held senior positions at SEB Enskilda Equities, Neonet Securities and HSBC.

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For nearly five years, Wilkes served as the head of buy-side solutions sales and head of securities services sales in the EMEA region. In this role, he was instrumental in distributing Deutsche Bank’s solutions product suite to major institutional clients in the financial services sector.  

In a social media post, Wilkes said, “Today marks my last day with Deutsche Bank. Since joining in August 2011, it has been a great place to work and has provided me with incredible opportunities for career and personal development. First, and foremost, I would like to thank the many talented people who have been part of the teams that I have had the privilege to lead – each and every one of you have contributed so much to the firm and I will always be grateful for your commitment and support.”  

In addition to his role in buy-side solutions, Wilkes also led the sales team responsible for distributing the Deutsche Bank custody platform across the EMEA region for the corporate bank. 

He added, “Amongst senior management I would particularly like to thank David Lynne, Sameen Farooqui, David Beale and Serene Chen for welcoming me to the Asia Pacific business all those years ago and being a source of great support ever since. To the many hundreds of colleagues in DB offices across the globe – in London, Singapore, New York, Mumbai, Seoul, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Zurich, Stockholm and Dubai to name just a few – thank you for your collaboration and professionalism, and for making this past 13 years at Deutsche Bank an incredible experience.” 

Prior to his tenure at Deutsche Bank, Wilkes spent six years at JP Morgan as an executive director of futures and options and OTC clearing sales. Before that, he served as vice president and relationship manager for JP Morgan’s priority asset manager clients. 

Wilkes began his career as an account manager at Targetbase Claydon Heeley and also held a senior analyst position at Goldman Sachs. 

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Mike Clarke

Anand Rengarajan, head of securities services for Asia Pacific and the Middle East and global head of sales said: “Contributing to Project Guardian will bolster our efforts to help shape the new frontier of asset servicing, and strongly position us to contribute to industry progress, and not only anticipate our clients’ needs but exceed their expectations.”

Specifically, Deutsche Bank – as part of the asset and wealth management workstream – will “test an open architecture and interoperable blockchain platform to service tokenised and digital funds […] then propose protocol standards and identify best practice to contribute to industry progress”. 

‘Project Guardian’ is a collaborative initiative between the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) and other financial market players which “seeks to test the feasibility of applications in asset tokenisation and DeFi, while managing risks to financial stability and integrity”.

Other financial market players involved in the multi-year project include global policymakers such as the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Switzerland’s Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA), and Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA), as well as other financial services financial services institutions such as BNY Mellon, Citi and JP Morgan.

Deutsche Bank’s Asia Pacific head of securities and technology advocacy and industry applied innovation lead, Boon-Hiong Chan, is set to be the bank’s lead for Project Guardian. 

Mike Clarke, global head of securities services product management, said: “Collaborating with leading fintechs and digital natives is key to engineering technologically advanced asset servicing products. This will not only enhance our competitiveness but empower us to create more value. 

“Through Project Guardian, and our work on relevant standardisation areas, we hope to elevate the sound and tangible benefits that technology and collaboration can bring to clients and the industry.”

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The bank joins a growing list of sell-side firms using the service including the likes of Citi, Northern Trust, Standard Chartered, along with buy-side outfits Legal & General, Franklin Templeton and American Century.

The fintech also has relationships with custody giants BNY Mellon and JP Morgan dating back to 2021 and 2020, respectively.

Saphyre’s automated intelligence handles onboarding and maintenance of custody, broker trading, and buy-side accounts while synchronising in real-time associated reference data between them. This provides a real-time golden source of data to all external parties. 

The fintech also notes that downstream, its solution eliminates issues relating to failed trades, and at the same time enables real-time, T+0, collaboration between parties which is necessary to meet the upcoming T+1 commitments.  

“We are thrilled to have Deutsche Bank, one of the most prestigious financial firms in the industry, join the family of capital market firms on the platform,” said Stephen Roche, president & co-founder of Saphyre. “By having them as part of our network, not only will Deutsche Bank realise middle- and back-office operational benefits, but our mutual buy-side clients will gain them as well. All while being first to trade on any new funds.”

Saphye won Fintech of the Year at The TRADE’s Leaders in Trading awards 2023, in a category supported by Instinet.

The start-up’s tech digitises all pre-trade data and activities across multiple counterparties with its platform maintaining memory of data and documents, resulting in clients not having to search or resubmit information, and expedites flow in a digitally structured manner so that it can be consumed and understood by any permissioned counterparty in the finance industry.

In speeding up the onboarding process, Saphyre claims it eliminates 70%-75% of redundant or inefficient post-trade activities. 

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Rabobank received a €26.6 million fine for its participation.

The fines relate to a trading cartel between the two banks in Euro-denominated SSA bonds and Government Guaranteed bonds that took place between 2006 and 2016.

According to the Commission’s findings, Deutsche Bank’s EUR SSA desk in Frankfurt and Rabobank’s Investment Grade Bonds desk in London “exchanged commercially sensitive information and coordinated their trading and pricing strategies” using Bloomberg emails, instant messages and online chatrooms.

The information exchanged included volumes, current and future strategies and positions, identities of counterparties and their requirements for buying and selling the bonds.

The watchdog confirmed it was investigating the two banks over the activity in December last year.

Speaking at the time of the announcement Deutsche Bank said: “Deutsche Bank has proactively cooperated with the European Commission in this matter and as a result has been granted conditional immunity. In accordance with the European Commission’s guidelines, Deutsche Bank does not expect a financial penalty. As this is an ongoing investigation, we cannot comment further.”

If successful, a leniency program applicant can either successfully avoid the entire fine or receive a large reduction from it.

The cartel is the third of its kind to come to light in the last few years after five major investment banks – Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Citigroup, JP Morgan and MUFG – were handed fines totalling around €1 billion by authorities in Europe in 2019 for taking part in cartels to rig the foreign exchange spot market for 11 currencies.

More recently in 2021, in two separate bond cartels, Nomura, UBS, and UniCredit in May and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Agricole and Credit Suisse in April were fined €371 and €28 million, respectively.

Regulators globally have begun a widespread clampdown on unregulated channels of communication in light of the findings.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirmed in November 2022 that its enforcement penalties had surged to a record in the government’s fiscal year, with its total enforcement actions totalling $6.4 billion in fines, up from $3.9 billion in 2021.

Fines around the use of messaging services such as WhatsApp to conduct business have largely driven this rise. Bank of America was served with a $200 million fine from the SEC  in July 2022 relating to its use of “unapproved personal devices”, joining JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley who both also received multi-million-dollar fines from the regulator in the same month.

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The transaction is the next step in Deutsche Bank’s Global Hausbank strategy, which aims to unlock deeper engagement with corporates in the UK.

The transaction – first reported on back in April – was previously valued at £410 million according to documents seen by The TRADE.

Deutsche Numis is set to serve more than 170 corporate broking clients and is focused on providing comprehensive financial and advisory solutions.

The new entity is a “leading force in UK investment banking and the adviser of choice for UK listed companies,” said Deutsche Bank, with Alex Ham, and Ross Mitchinson having been named co-chief executives.

Both will report to Henrik Johnsson, co-head of EMEA investment banking at Deutsche Bank and former chair of Deutsche Numis, Luke Savage, who will continue to sit on the board, working closely with the leadership team.

Speaking to the update, Ham said: “Deutsche Numis is now a leading force in UK investment banking, building on a long track record of providing innovative financial advice and solutions for ambitious public and private companies, and investors doing business in the UK.” 

Mitchinson added: “Continuing to deliver for our people and our clients will be at the heart of Deutsche Numis and we are confident that the professionalism, high performance, and client service that has long underpinned both companies will only be further enhanced by this combination.

“We look forward to continuing to build our position in UK investment banking, enhanced by the scale and strength of Deutsche Bank, including the ability to draw on a global industry capability and a broader array of financing solutions.” 

Read more – Numis shutters low touch electronic trading business

At the time the deal was revealed, documents seen by The TRADE made clear that the move had come amidst the bank evaluating the best way to accelerate the growth of its UK business after identifying it as the largest investment banking market in Europe.

The documents also outlined that the combination of the pair’s businesses across corporate broking, strategic advisory, equity and debt capital markets, and equity sales, research and execution would work to “unlock significant value” within their franchises.

Speaking in an announcement today, Fabrizio Campelli, head of corporate bank and investment bank at Deutsche Bank highlighted how the acquisition fits into the business’ wider strategy: “The transaction is strongly aligned to our Global Hausbank strategy, allowing us to expand our reach amongst UK and international corporates in Europe’s largest investment banking market, and underlines our long-term commitment to the UK.

“We are proud to introduce Deutsche Numis as a leading corporate broker in the UK and we look forward to working with Alex, Ross and the rest of the team.”

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Read more – Union Investment’s trading head Hock steps away from role to pursue digital asset aspirations

Speaking to the decision to trade through 360T, Rico Milde, head of FX trading at Union Investment, said: “Given that we are a long-term user of Eurex FX futures and have many trading relationships to manage, 360T – which offers us a range of specialist execution management capabilities – was a natural choice to partner with.

“We are confident that using the 360T EMS to manage all of our off-exchange futures relationship-trading activity in a fully integrated setup will deliver significant benefits to our trading desk.”

Deutsche Bank was the inaugural foreign exchange futures liquidity provider for Union Investment, with the bank set to reap the benefits of central clearing as well as continuing to take advantage of the customisation of over-the-counter (OTC) FX execution models, according to Hilko Kalberlah, head of DACH FX sales for institutional clients at Deutsche Bank. 

360T provides web-based trading technology for OTC instruments, as well as integration solutions and related services.

Read more: Deutsche Börse rolls out real-time FX pricing data from 360T platform

Speaking in an announcement, 360T explained that the potentially increasing costs when it comes to trading FX forwards across OTC channels, as a result of regulatory changes, will likely make its offering more and more attractive to market participants.

Sebastian Hofmann-Werther, head of EMEA at 360T, highlighted how this move fits into the business’ strategy: “The seamless integration between 360T and Eurex is part of a strategic investment we have made into supporting Listed FX trading alongside our world class OTC offering and we are now able to provide access to a range of different FX futures products to meet the various needs of our diverse, global client base.

“Meanwhile, we continue to see strong adoption of our best-in-class EMS by market-leading firms like Union Investment as they look for ways to continue expanding and enhancing their FX execution capabilities.”

Earlier this month, 360T made streaming mid liquidity via APIs available on its Swaps User Network (SUN), with Deutsche Bank and ING executing the initial trade. According to the business, this was the first time two banks had been able to trade FX swaps via API and match at the market midpoint.

Speaking to The TRADE, Hock said: “When we’re looking at futures transactions we have a higher participation rate compared to most of our peers […] so we’ve been fairly early adopter of this product.

“What’s important for us when executing – not just in FX but all asset classes – is to get the very best outcome for our investors. Not just best execution, also the regulatory requirements. Our goal is to be connected to the very best platforms and have the best breadth of broker firms on this platform, enabling us to play the white keys, the black keys and the pedals of the piano.”

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According to 360T, this is the first time that two banks have been able to trade FX Swaps via API and match at the market midpoint.

In addition, 360T SUN is the only platform that currently offers a continuous streaming mid-price for FX Swap instruments.

“Establishing a marketplace that facilitates risk offset at the mid—market level signifies the next phase in the advancement of FX swaps trading,” said Shuo Wu, global head of forward e-trading at Deutsche Bank.

“This development finally delivers for the industry opportunities that have long been present in smaller markets, and empowers us to better cater to the rising client demand for access to these products.”

360T’s chief growth officer, Simon Jones, stated that the firm is confident that the development will mark a fundamental change in how banks trade FX swaps, opening the door to auto-hedging, aggregation and algorithmic execution. “360T SUN will ultimately allow our bank partners to better service their clients and enhance their own trading capabilities while unlocking further growth in the FX Swaps market,” said Jones.

Elsewhere, Simon Bevan, head of eFX trading at ING, added that trading FX swaps via API and executing at mid can deliver significant benefits: “The ability to auto price FX Swaps offers more efficient execution for our clients while enabling us to hedge our own risk better, and we’re delighted to now be deploying this technology,” he said.

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Deutsche Bank has re-entered the local DCM in South Korea as it expands its investment banking capabilities in the region in a bid to support its local clients in accessing global debt capital markets.

The bank initially launched operations in South Korea in 1978, with an offering comprising investment banking solutions including fixed income and currencies, corporate banking, and a focused equity capital markets business.

It also provides asset management services to its South Korean clients through Deutsche Bank subsidiary, DWS.

Sungeun Ahn, chief country officer for South Korea at Deutsche Bank highlighted that the bank is expanding its investment remit in recognition of the opportunities South Korea holds.

Through this expansion, the bank will have a dedicated DCM presence in eight jurisdictions. The South Korean remit is set to be enhanced through three strategic appointments to the business.

Adele Moon has been named as head of DCM for South Korea and tasked with expanding the bank’s offering in the country. She joins from Mizuho Securities in Hong Kong where she was most recently head of Korea DCM. 

A new chair of M&A for Asia Pacific has also been announced as the bank focuses on growing its franchise. Samuel Kim previously worked at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong as chair of Asia M&A.

In addition, Shinna Oh will join the Seoul-based investment banking coverage team, joining from Credit Suisse.

Haitham Ghattas, head of capital markets for Asia Pacific at Deutsche Bank, emphasised the important steps being taken to extend the regional DCM presence: “[It will] enable us to support a wide range of South Korean clients in accessing global debt capital markets. I am confident that Adele’s leadership and expertise coupled with our strong local coverage will drive our business in South Korea forward.”

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New co-heads Torsten Schöneborn and Jerry Minier will be London-based and will report to Michael Lublinsky, global head of macro, according to an internal memo seen by The TRADE.

Minier takes up the new role after spending the last two years at Barclays as its head of FX options trading, joining from Goldman Sachs in 2020. While at Goldman, he held FX options roles in New York, London, and Hong Kong.

Alongside him, Torsten Schöneborn has also been appointed co-head of G10 FX trading. The appointment of Schöneborn is the sixth external hire into global macro for Barclays. He joins the bank from BNP Paribas where he had been global head of electronic platform and global head of quant prime broking.

Before that, he spent almost ten years at Deutsche Bank, where his roles included global co-head of electronic equities and head of eFX spot quant trading.

Speaking to the appointments, Lublinsky said: “We have made great progress growing our Global Macro business and remain relentlessly focused on the areas where we can be consistently excellent. FX is one of our historic strengths and Torsten and Jerry’s expertise will help us execute our next set of priorities as we continue to invest and build best in class platforms and solutions for our clients.”

Barclays has made several new hires in the last few months including  Scott McDavid who was appointed global head of equities and a new global head of equities distribution Ronnie Wexler in May.

Additionally, Yun Zhang was internally promoted to head of macro trading, Asia Pacific in the same month.

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