London’s interbank FX trading desks have long competed against eachother for the best talent, with many FX traders hanging onto their positions at Barclays despite flagging corporate performance due to high remuneration compared with its contemporaries, all of which have had less turbulent revenues over the last few months, but are renowned for not providing such high salaries to FX traders.
One particular former Barclays FX trader has been attracted away from the British giants altogether, accepting a position at French financial giant Credit Agricole in the senior capacity of Emerging Markets FX Options Correlation Trader.
Nikhil Kochhar moved to Credit Agricole from his former position at Barclays FX, where he served as Senior FX Options Trader, however his appointment will not require relocation, as he will be based at Credit Agricole’s London headquarters.
Mr. Kochhar is joined at Credit Agricole by a new Global Head of Linear FX, Tony Botting, who joins the company from London’s RBC Capital Markets where he held the position of Managing Director and Head of FX Trading for the Asia Pacific region. Mr. Botting’s departure from RBC Capital Markets signaled the end of a 9 year tenure at the firm. Previously he was head of G-10 and Emerging Markets FX Trading in London, and co-head of Spot Trading with responsibility for the Canadian bank’s British business.
Mr. Botting had previously been based in Hong Kong, where he worked at HSBC.
The appointment of these two senior FX industry figures to Credit Agricole’s FX division in London signifies a return by interbank participants to the recruitment of high-level professionals to FX departments, very shortly after Barclays had announced the potential redundancy of 19,000 members of staff, with several thousand from its investment banking division, and a recruitment freeze among many trading desks in London.