FOREIGN EXCHANGE JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE. BBA, Broad Street, London, EC2M 1EX MINUTES. Assoc. of Corporate Treasurers

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1 FOREIGN EXCHANGE JOINT STANDING COMMITTEE Tuesday 6 th July 2010 at 4pm BBA, Broad Street, London, EC2M 1EX MINUTES In Attendance Brian Welch Christopher Bae Rob Loewy Richard Gill Cassandra Kenny Mike Bagguley Martin Wiedermann James Bindler Alan Bozian Zar Amrolia David Bailey Phil Weisberg Nick Burgin Frederic Boillereau Troy Rohrbaugh Sarah Edgington Richard Gladwin Darren Coote Alex McDonald Graeme Munro Michael Cross Grigoria Christodoulou Sumita Ghosh Jacqueline Joyston-Bechal François Nembrini Mark Davison Andrew Coyne Apologies Vincent Leclercq Heather Pilley John Nixon Roger Hawes James Potter Nick Cox Susan Revell Assoc. of Corporate Treasurers Bank of America Merrill Lynch Bank of China Bank of New York Mellon BBA Barclays Capital Credit Suisse Citi CLS Deutsche Bank FSA FXAll Goldman Sachs HSBC JP Morgan Chase Morgan Stanley Nomura UBS WMBA JP Morgan Chase (Chair Operations subgroup) Bank of England (Chair) Bank of England (Secretariat) Bank of England (Secretariat) Bank of England FXCM FXCM Citi Credit Agricole CIB FSA ICAP RBS Tullet Prebon BlackRock (co-chair FX Investor subgroup) Morgan Stanley (Chair Legal subgroup)

2 1. Apologies for absence Apologies were received from Nick Cox, Vincent Leclercq, Heather Pilley, John Nixon, Roger Hawes, James Potter and Susan Revell. The Chair welcomed Martin Wiederman (Credit Suisse) and Alan Bozian (CLS) to their first meeting and David Bailey (FSA), François Nembrini (FXCM), Mark Davison (FXCM) and Andrew Coyne (Citi). 2. Minutes of 18 May 2010 meeting and matters arising The minutes of the May meeting were agreed. There were no matters arising. 3. Retail trading update François Nembrini (FXCM) provided a brief overview of the global retail foreign exchange industry and discussed some of the key developments in the international regulatory environment. Mr Nembrini distinguished four main categories of typical retail FX customers: (a) carry traders who tend to have a medium to long-term market view, seeking steady returns from interest rate differentials; (b) discretionary volatility traders they are the largest group of customers in the retail FX industry and tend to be short-term in outlook, utilising the available leverage and liquidity in the FX market to take advantage of small price movements; (c) automated volatility traders are the fastest growing segment of the market; and (d) global macro traders who generally place longterm directional trades on fundamental themes such as GDP growth, commodities prices or interest rate trends.

3 Mr Nembrini noted that retail foreign exchange brokers, such as FXCM, are regulated in the US by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the National Futures Association (NFA). Most recently, the focus of US regulation has been on capital requirements as well as trading and execution practices. In the UK, retail foreign exchange brokers are regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) which ensures that they have sound capital and that client funds are safe. The Financial Services Agency (FSA-jp) is responsible for the regulation of retail brokers in Japan. In August the Japanese FSA imposed a limit on individual client leverage to 50:1 and is expected to reduce the limit further to 25:1 by August Prime broker update Andrew Coyne (Citi) highlighted a number of recent developments in foreign exchange prime brokerage. He noted that, over the past few years, foreign exchange ticket volumes have increased significantly, while the average ticket size has decreased, putting some pressure on the existing system capacity to process these trades. In order to alleviate some of the pressure, prime brokers (PBs) have been investing in increased system capacity and have been making more use of trade aggregation tools. Moreover, the evolution of PB client trading as well as recent regulatory initiatives in the OTC derivatives space have posed new challenges for primer brokers who continue their efforts to further improve their client service and risk management practices. 5. Recent developments in US regulation James Bindler (Citi) noted that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act was passed by the House of Representatives on 30 June and it is expected to be signed by President Obama in July. The bill provides that foreign

4 exchange swaps and forwards will be considered to be swaps, and subject to CFTC jurisdiction, unless the US Treasury makes a written determination that either or both types of transactions (a) should not be regulated as swaps and (b) are not structured to evade the bill. FX options and NDFs will be considered derivatives and included in the legislation. FX spot does not fall within the remit of this bill. It was noted that even if the US Treasury ultimately determines to exclude foreign exchange swaps and forwards, the bill provides that parties to such transactions are subject to certain business conduct standards, and requires these transactions to be reported to a swap data repository or, if no swap data repository will accept reporting such swaps or forwards, to the CFTC. Similarly the bill prohibits FX swaps and forwards that are cleared or traded on an exchange or swap execution facility from being exempted from prohibitions on fraud and manipulation. Finally, the US Treasury s determination regarding FX transactions will not affect the CFTC s jurisdiction over retail FX transactions. With regards to the Volcker Rule, banking entities will be allowed to engage in proprietary trading if it is in connection with underwriting or market-making-related activities. The Volcker Rule is not effective until two years after enactment, at which point a two-year transition period begins, with the possibility of additional extensions thereafter. The bill requires the CFTC and SEC to put in place rules for real-time public data reporting of swap transactions, including price and volume. Both cleared and uncleared swaps must be reported to a registered swap data repository.

5 6. Regulatory update The European Commission published a consultation document on OTC derivatives and market infrastructures on 14 June. The consultation includes, amongst others, sections on mandatory clearing requirements for OTC derivatives, regulatory requirements for clearing houses and requirements for data reporting to trade repositories. The deadline for responses is 10 July with the European Commission expected to put forward a formal proposal in September. Following the publication of the latest commitment letter by market participants to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York ( Fed Commitment letter ) and other authorities in March, FX market participants have been working on a letter focused on the foreign exchange/currency derivatives asset classes. 7. Sub-group updates - Operations sub-group The operations subgroup, together with the New York Operations Managers Working Group (OMWG) and the ECB Operations Managers Group (OMG), held a joint meeting in May to discuss topical issues and current work streams. The members of the three sub-groups agreed to work together as far as possible to improve efficiency and achieve best practice standards in the foreign exchange market. - Chief Dealers sub group The Chief Dealers group met in early July and discussed the increase in foreign

6 exchange trading volumes in May as well as regulatory developments both in the US and euro-area. - FX Investor sub-group The membership of the FX Investor sub-group (formerly known as the Outreach sub-group ) has been extended to 16 members. The sub-group is due to meet next in mid-july. 8. Any other business - April FXJSC turnover survey The results of the April 2010 FXJSC turnover survey are expected to be published on Monday 26 July. The next meeting of the FXJSC will be held on Tuesday 21 4pm.