MOSCOW, June 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
First Derivatives plc ("FD"), a leading provider of software and consulting services to global investment banks, brokers and hedge funds has today announced that it has entered a strategic partnership with FOREX CLUB, a leading[1] online broker. The partnership will enable FOREX CLUB clients to benefit from global access to the largest liquidity pools in the market provided by 12 leading global banks and institutional levels of pricing, execution and spreads in foreign exchange trading.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20120517/533090 )
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The agreement is FD's first partnership with a privately owned retail FX broker based in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States ('CIS'). By introducing FD's Delta Flow™ trading technology, which uses a Direct Bank Access (DBA) model, FOREX CLUB's global client base are plugged directly into the heart of the foreign exchange market ensuring best quality execution, spreads and pricing.
Using the latest standardised connectivity from centralised data centres in the world, FOREX CLUB is now able to provide its clients with ultra-low latency and unlimited connectivity, thereby delivering an institutional level of service across all its platforms including StartFX2, MT4, ActTrader™ and Rumus.
John Beckert, MD e-Trading & Risk Management Solutions at First Derivatives, said: "Our business development model is predicated on the need to focus on those clients who can demonstrate a market vision underpinned by a solid business plan. This is vital to our growth as well as our clients. Collaborating with a firm such as FOREX CLUB enhances our ability to deliver market leading enterprise wide solutions to the broker sector of the market. We pride ourselves on partnering with clients for mutual business success and long-term profitability. On this basis, we welcome FOREX CLUB as our newest partner. By leveraging our best-in-class technologies and consultancy, we believe that FOREX CLUB is well-placed to strengthen its competitive position in the retail forex market. At the same time, their decision to adopt our Delta Flow™ trading technology underlines our commitment to providing innovative and cutting edge solutions to the forex trading markets."
Demetrios Zamboglou, Head of Hedge & Quant at FOREX CLUB, said: "We are delighted to have reached an agreement with First Derivatives to be our primary trading technology partner. This demonstrates our commitment to becoming a global leader in online retail FX trading. By ensuring direct client access to multiple pools of liquidity from the top global banks, we strengthen our competitive edge by giving clients tighter spreads and best execution practices."
About Delta
Launched in 2008 by First Derivatives plc, Delta is a comprehensive suite of high performance real-time trading, CEP, market data and risk management applications. Flagship trading products include Delta Flow, Delta Algo, Delta Margin and Delta Stream which are used in high volume, low latency environments.
About First Derivatives, PLC
First Derivatives is a global provider of software and consulting services to the financial services industry. With almost 16 years' experience working with leading financial institutions, it continues to deliver technologically advanced products and services that anticipate and respond to the evolving needs of global capital markets.
First Derivatives currently employs over 670 people worldwide and counts many of the world's top investment banks, brokers and hedge funds as its customers. It has operations in London, New York, Stockholm, Shanghai, Singapore, Toronto, Sydney, Dublin, Newry and Hong Kong.
For further information please visit http://www.firstderivatives.com
Established in 1997, FOREX CLUB is the brand name for a group of companies that provides clients from over 120 countries with platforms and services for trading forex, CFDs and other online trading and educational products. It offers clients high-quality tools in training, analytics and education, as well as personal support. FOREX CLUB has over 600 employees worldwide servicing 45,000 traders. The company was one of the industry's first to offer zero spread trading and commission refunds on all unprofitable trades exclusively on StartFX 2, the company's proprietary platform.
The company remains committed to the developed standards set forth by government regulators around the world. The company's Russian broker is a founding member of CRFIN, the Russian self-regulatory organization.
The structure of FOREX CLUB Group of Companies includes a range of brokers and training centers, including Forex Club International Limited, Akmos Trade, FOREX CLUB (FSFM license #004857) and the International Trading Academy.
http://www.firstderivatives.com;
[Notes for Editors]
[1] FOREX CLUB was rated in Forex Magnates' Q4 2011 and Q1 2012 Industry Reports as one of the top ten global brokers by retail forex volume.
Hollande's finance minister says €450,000 pay cap 'matter of justice' - The Guardian
France's finance minister has declared a crusade against executive pay at state-controlled companies, describing a wages cap of €450,000 a year (£362,000) for bosses as a matter of "justice and morality".
Pierre Moscovici said the pay squeeze will come into effect over the next two years and delivers on a campaign promise by France's new socialist president François Hollande, who sought to tap widespread public anger over executive salary packages
"Earning €450,000 a year doesn't seem to me a deterrent if we want to have quality men and women at the head of our companies," said Moscovici. He added that the measure was needed to "make state companies more ethical" and respond to "the demands of justice and transparency" at a time of economic crisis.
The new government expects to publish a decree on the pay cap next month. Turning the screw on executives, it will then introduce a bill in parliament later in the year to address stock options, so-called "golden parachute" clauses and other components of executive salary packages.
The limit will apply to all companies in which the state holds majority ownership, including the postal service, nuclear power giant Areva, electric utility EDF, railway company SNCF and public transport operator RATP. Hollande set clear limits on executive pay on the campaign trail, saying that no executive at a state company should earn than 20 times the lowest-paid worker's salary. Fewer than 20 executives currently have salaries over the limit, the finance ministry said.
"I'm convinced that the strict salary framework at public companies will in time inspire the stabilisation of certain practices in the private sector," Moscovici said, promising that all salaries for top executives at state firms would now be made public.
The UMP, the party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy - who lost to Hollande in last month's presidential run-off election - dismissed the cap as political posturing. "It's a campaign promise. They're pretending to fix our problems by reducing executives' salaries. It falls under the category of 'ostentatious morality'," said UMP leader Jean-Francois Cope. "They make the French people believe they are fixing the problems with the budget and the economy by reducing the salaries of our country's executives. It's extremely hypocritical. This doesn't fix anything."
Private equity courts pension funds for M&A finance - Reuters UK
LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) - Starved of finance from hard-pressed banks, private equity firms in Europe are sounding out yield-hungry pension funds, insurers and sovereign wealth funds as alternative sources of the finance they need to do deals.
If they are successful, they will open up a funding channel that could prove vital in keeping the private equity sector in business as the European bank sector struggles to escape from the clutches of the euro-zone crisis.
Big investors could be an alternative source of the large amounts of debt with which private equity finances acquisitions, via so-called leveraged buyouts (LBOs), and industry players say talks are already taking place between the two sides.
Institutions have long been backers of private equity funds, often investing equity alongside buyout firms into large deals, but have not in the past ploughed money directly into private equity company debt.
"We've had a number of discussions about the possibility of opening up the institutional market," HgCapital partner Richard Donner told Reuters, while a senior debt adviser to private equity groups said he has had similar experiences.
"My view is that you will see new entrants come into fill the gap, and it is starting to happen," said Paul Scott, CIO and head of sponsor coverage at GE Capital EMEA (GEA.N) - the banking business of General Electric (GE.N), itself trying move into the space left by banks.
Between them, Donner and Scott have had talks with life assurance providers, large U.S. and Canadian pension funds and sovereign wealth funds interested in potentially high-yielding private equity debt to supplement returns from underperforming treasuries and equities.
Private equity dealmaking collapsed in the wake of the financial crisis as bank lending dried up. That severely restricted both the size and volume of leveraged buyouts, as private equity houses put in the equity but need to find a large part of the deal value in the form of debt.
INVESTMENT APPETITE
European leveraged buyout lending dropped from some 140 billion euros in 2007 to just 44.5 bln last year, according to Thomson Reuters LPC data.
A handful of deals, such as the buyout of BSN Medical by EQT this week and the sale of fish-finger maker Iglo Group, just highlight lenders' desire to focus on companies with which they are already familiar, bankers say.
"Banks continue to lend, but seem to have a preference for providing credit to companies they know well. New deals appear more difficult to finance regardless of size," said Florus Plantenga, who leads European private equity coverage at advisory firm Houlihan Lokey.
The issuance of high-yield bonds, which allow institutions to invest in high-coupon private equity debt, has compensated for some of the dearth of leveraged lending by more than tripling to 76 billion euros since 2007.
But that market is volatile, reaches only the largest deals, and overall lending for buyouts is down more than 25 percent.
Low yields from treasuries, volatile performance from equities and no incentive to hold cash, are all prompting large institutions to consider better risk-weighted returns elsewhere.
"A lot of people are looking for yield and 2 to 3 percent from government gilts does not do much for them. Pension funds need to make their 6 to 7 percent a year and they are looking for things that are relatively low risk," said David Currie, chief executive, private equity investments, at Standard Life (SL.L).
Some have made inroads into corporate debt, with Aviva (AV.L) recently lending self-storage group Big Yellow 100 million pounds at an annual interest rate of 4.9 percent.
That appetite for better performance from their investments could take them to private equity-backed buyouts with debt pricing starting at about 5 percentage points above Euribor, some say.
LACK OF LIQUIDITY
Specialist debt investors and managers, such as Haymarket Financial, have sprung up, but some believe there are prospects of investors getting more directly involved.
"What you could easily see is institutions that need yield - life companies and pension funds - coming directly into the private placement market," said Steven Davis, who heads the corporate finance practice for law firm SJ Berwin.
But despite the talk, no deals have yet come to fruition. And challenges remain, not least the lack of liquidity and the absence of widespread credit ratings that institutions need to help inform their investment decisions.
"I have talked directly to one or two of these big U.S. life offices and they are very interested until such time as you tell them it is illiquid and unrated," Donner said.
That could lead some investors and providers of finance to consider pooled debt investment vehicles, that would have echoes of the collateralised loan obligation funds that took so much of the buyout debt underwritten by banks in the boom time of the early to mid 2000s.
The disappearance of new CLOs in the credit crisis went hand in hand with the banks' retreat in Europe, as concerns of widespread defaults led to tumbling prices, and fears over toxic debt tarred many collateralised debt vehicles.
But some large investors could establish their own debt investing arms, bringing the management of debt investing in house, or look to work with a partner who can source debt deals, GE Capital's Scott said.
"From our perspective it would be great for there to be greater depth in the institutional market," said HgCapital's Donner. "If someone could crack it, I'd be delighted."
(Editing by Douwe Miedema and David Holmes)
Unique Places Where Personal Finance Training Is Taught - Yahoo Finance
While some parents do a great job of teaching their children how to handle money, many people become adults without ever learning the importance of saving money for emergencies and future expenses. Personal finance education has been available for decades from a variety of sources, but renewed interest in the topic may be the silver lining in the cloud of the global financial crisis and housing market meltdown.
Whether you are a parent or a teacher looking for financial education for young people or an adult hoping to get a better grasp on your assets, a variety of resources are available. The National Financial Educators Council has developed a financial literacy curriculum that can be used by schools, employers, nonprofit organizations and individuals. Courses can be found on the organization's website and are separated into sections for students in pre-kindergarten through second grade, third through fifth grade, middle school, high school, college and for adults.
Community Organizations
Community and business groups around the nation also provide financial literacy training, typically at little or no cost. For example, the Financial Women's Association in New York City has a Financial Literacy Committee that provides a seven-week course to teach financial skills to economically challenged women who are entering the workforce through training programs. The classes are taught at Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), an organization that trains women for jobs as plumbers, electricians, carpenters and other skilled positions, and at The Grace Institute, an organization that trains women in business skills.
The New York City Public Library offers a Financial Literacy Now program that offers one-on-one consultations with a certified financial planner.
Schools
Financial literacy classes are required in 14 states for high school students, while five states require students to be tested in the subject. In some cases, personal finance is incorporated with math or economics classes. According to U.S. News & World Report, the Jump$tart Coalition, which supports personal finance literacy throughout the United States, recommends that schools provide more than a single semester of personal finance training. Many schools offer things like in-school banks, stock market games and financial simulations starting in elementary school to promote an understanding of financial issues.
In addition to the curriculum used by individual schools, many banks and credit unions partner with schools to open accounts and to teach students about personal finance and the importance of saving.
Military
While the military trains men and women for defense and combat activity, most branches of the military also try to provide members with some personal finance training. For example, the Navy provides personal finance classes to sailors stationed at bases to prepare them for the financial decisions they need to make. Members of the military, particularly those who are young and inexperienced, are often victimized by people who try to take advantage of their vulnerability with financial scams.
In addition to classes, the booklet "Financial Field Manual: The Personal Finance Guide For Military Families," is in its second edition. Produced by a partnership between the Investor Protection Trust (IPT), the Investor Protection Institute (IPI), the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) and "Kiplinger's Personal Finance" the book focuses on key issues that are of importance to military families, such as investing, homebuyer resources and special benefits available to military families. The booklets are distributed for free at military bases around the globe, and are used as part of education programs for military families in 29 states and the District of Columbia.
Government
Over 20 federal government agencies have websites with personal finance information for consumers on topics ranging from home financing to credit card debt to student loans to avoiding scams, retirement planning and more. Information from all 20 of these sites is accessible from MyMoney.gov, a searchable website that functions as the primary source for consumers looking for advice on personal finance topics. The site can be read in English or in Spanish, and includes a variety of tools and calculators to assist with budgeting and financial decisions.
Credit Bureau
Most people think of FICO as the credit score generated by the three major credit reporting bureaus, but at MYFICO.com, consumers can find a plethora of information related to debt management and improving their credit scores.
The Bottom Line
With the wide availability of personal finance training, consumers have very few excuses for not learning to manage their money.
More From Investopedia
CNBC and Yahoo! Finance team up in distribution deal - msnbc.com
CNBC and Yahoo! Finance announced a deal Wednesday in which the business news cable network will become the top content source for Yahoo's financial news arm.
Conversely, CNBC will be providing a broadcast platform for Yahoo! Finance's original content and contributors, the two companies said in a joint statement. The deal is effective immediately and will allow CNBC content to be integrated into Yahoo! Finance and the Yahoo! Homepage.
The statement said the two companies will maintain editorial control of their respective sites.
In addition, later this year the two companies will team up for co-branded, original videos that will appear on CNBC.com and on Yahoo! Finance. "Yahoo! Finance’s journalists will contribute to CNBC’s Business Day programming and CNBC clips, news and analysis will be prominently integrated into Yahoo! Finance and featured across the Yahoo! network," they said.
"This collaboration is about two leaders in their respective spaces coming together,” said Mark Hoffman, President and CEO of CNBC. “With CNBC taking a central role on the biggest business news site in the world, we now have the ability to provide real-time news, analysis and information to a larger audience and offer unmatched advertising solutions for marketers looking for access across multiple platforms."
"This partnership is a key step forward in Yahoo's strategy to become a premium media network," said Robertson Barrett, vice president of news and finance at Yahoo.
Yahoo Finance is one of the most visited business destinations on the Internet and CNBC is the dominant business news cable channel.
Yahoo is no stranger to striking alliances with media companies and this partnership furthers its ambitions to become one of the top destinations for news and entertainment. For instance, it has a deal with Walt Disney Co's ABC News to use its content and jointly produce journalism projects.
The alliance with CNBC is a way to extend both Yahoo's and CNBC's audiences across the Internet and entice advertisers to pay premium prices. CNBC and Yahoo Finance have a combined unduplicated online audience of more than 40 million people, according to comScore data.
"We have really high quality audiences and we have great content," said Kevin Krim, general manager of CNBC Digital.
Neither Krim nor Barrett would go into the terms of the multi-year deal but they said it included a share in revenue from advertising.
Yahoo and CNBC said they will maintain their relationships with other media companies. Yahoo, for instance, has partnerships with Reuters, The Associated Press and Dow Jones.
Comcast Corp controls CNBC.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBCUniversal, which is majority-owned by Comcast.)
Reuters contributed to this report.
German finance minister says Greeks cannot be 'spared' - BBC News
The German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, has said that ordinary Greeks cannot escape painful cuts and must accept them, however they vote.
He told Stern magazine that while he had "really huge sympathy for the man on the street in Greece", he could "not spare him" a cut to the minimum wage.
Germany, the richest eurozone state, strongly opposes relaxing conditions for the bailouts given to Greece.
Mr Schaeuble said Sunday's election in Greece would not change the situation.
Antonis Samaras, head of Greece's main conservative party New Democracy, has again urged voters to reject anti-bailout campaigners.
The country is holding a repeat general election on Sunday after parties failed to agree on a new government following the original ballot on 6 May.
By law, no opinion polls may be conducted in the final two weeks before the election. The last available surveys suggested New Democracy were neck and neck with the far-left anti-bailout bloc Syriza.
'Not easy'Rigid austerity measures were attached to the two international bailouts awarded Greece, an initial package worth 110bn euros (£89bn; $138bn) in 2010, then a follow-up last year worth 130bn euros.
"In a crisis... the little man suffers and the rich feather their own nests," Mr Schaeuble said.
"It is not easy to cut the minimum wage in Greece, when you think of the many people who own a yacht."
But, he stressed, if Greece wanted to regain competitiveness, the minimum wage "must fall".
"An election result will not change anything about the real situation of the country, which is in a painful crisis due to decades of economic mismanagement," the minister added.
On Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said countries such as Greece that had received bailouts could not expect the conditions attached to be relaxed.
Immigration pledgeSpeaking to reporters on Wednesday, Antonis Samaras said his party would do "everything for there to be a government" after 17 June.
His two conditions, he said, were amending the last bailout in order to create jobs and staying in the eurozone.
"We have to change this programme in order to stimulate job growth... while at the same time we must try to remain with the Eurozone," he said.
The conservative leader also vowed to "take back" Greek cities from illegal immigrants if his party won on Sunday.
"We have to take back our cities from those who have flowed in without any permission whatsoever," the Greek party leader said.
Illegal immigration is a sensitive issue in Greece, where a far-right party, Golden Dawn, won seats in the May election on an anti-immigration platform.
Debt crisis: Germany signals shift on €2.3 trillion redemption fund for Europe - Daily Telegraph
“We must recognise that we have a systemic problem. I am not sure the urgency of this is fully understood in all the capitals,” he said in a thinly veiled attack on Berlin.
Yields on 10-year Spanish debt hovered at danger levels just under 6.8pc on Wednesday on doubts that the EU’s €100bn rescue for the country will be the end of the story, with drastic knock-on effects in Italy. “The crisis will inevitably roll onto the next domino, and that is Italy, “ said Simon Nixon from Societe Generale.
Rome had to pay 3.97pc to raise €6.5bn of 12-month debt on Wednesday, compared with 2.34pc in May. Europe's bourses were mostly level with the FTSE 100 up 0.2pc, ignoring the warning signals from the credit markets.
"I feel very sorry for Italy," said Andrew Roberts, credit chief at RBS. "They have done the hard work over the years and have a cyclically-adjusted surplus. This is pure contagion."
"The fact that the rally lasted just two hours after Spain's bail-out is very corrosive. We are now accelerating into the end-game. Either we have fiscal pooling of one sort or another, or we are heading straight into euro exits and defaults," he said.
Italy's premier Mario Monti told the Italian Parliament on Wednesday that he expects the Redeption Pact to be "on the table" at the EU summit, even if it does not come into force immediately.
In Germany, the opposition Greens and Social Democrats both back the plan. Mrs Merkel cannot ignore them since she needs their votes to ratify the EU Fiscal Treaty, which requires a two-thirds majority.
Green leader Jürgen Tritten warned that his party would block the Treaty in the upper house unless the Redemption Pact was adopted. "It is central for us. The Europe of austerity is ending," he said.
Cross-party talks in the Bundestag broke down in acrimony on Wednesday over demands by the opposition for a "growth compact" to help lift Southern Europe out of its downward spiral. Mrs Merkel's Chrisitian Democrats will clearly have to give ground.
The Redemption Pact covers all public debts of EMU states above the Maastricht limit of 60pc of GDP, roughly €2.3 trillion. It is modeled on Alexander Hamilton's Sinking Fund in 1790 to clear up legacy debts after the American revolutionary war.
The idea is to treat the first decade of monetary union as a learning experience -- with mistakes made all round -- and allow a fresh start. The excess debt would be paid down over twenty years.
The beauty of the proposal is that would return Europe to the Masstricht discipline where each state is responsible for its own debts. It is the exact opposite of fiscal union.
Officials at Germany's top court say it appears compatible with the country's constitution -- unlike eurobonds. There would be a fixed limit to costs and the fund would not endanger the tax and spending sovereignty of the Bundestag.
The debt would be covered by joint bonds, payed for from a designated tax. Each country would be responsible for its own share of debt in the fund -- Italy €960bn, Germany €580bn, France €500bn, and so forth -- but would issue bonds jointly.
It is not yet clear whether Chancellor Merkel can persuade her own party to support the Pact. Her own finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble poured cold water over the idea earlier this week. "This fund is not feasable because it breaches with the European treaties and the `no bail-out' clause, which says countries cannot be responsible for the liabilities of another country. Without a joint fiscal policy you can't have shared liabilities," he told Stern Magazine.
Experts say this overlooks the tough conditionality. Italy and other states would have to pledge gold and other forms of collateral equal to 20pc of their debt in the fund.
"The assets could be taken from the country's currency and gold reserves. The collateral nominated would only be used in the event that a country does not meet its payment obligations," said the proposal.
Berlin would have veto lockhold, able to ensure discipline in a way that it cannot do with the European Central Bank where it has just two votes.
The fund would entail sacrifices for Germany. The country would no longer enjoy safe-haven borrowing costs -- curently 1.48pc for 10-year Bunds -- on a quarter of its total debt. A study by Jefferies Fixed Income concluded that it would cost Germany 0.6pc of GDP each year.
Yet the authors insist that any such costs will be outweighed by massive relief as Europe finally breaks the logjam of the last two years and offers southern Europe a chance to claw its way out of perpetual depression. Mrs Merkel is beginning to agree.
Forex: NZD/USD upside capped at 0.7800 - NASDAQ
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FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - The cross has failed to follow through the 0.7800 mark on Wednesday so far, retracing some ground back to the 0.7785 region as of writing. Despite rising yields in both Spanish and Italian bond debt markets, risk ...
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