News Nuggets | 27 April: LSEG and Deutsche Bank Results; Crypto in Hong Kong

TopFX’s Head of Marketing Resigns after Nearly Six Years

Maria Meramveliotaki, the Head of Marketing at TOPFX, has given up her role at the Cyprus-based retail and institutional brokerage firm after five years and eight months of service. Meramveliotaki, who joined TopFX as a Senior Content Writer in September 2017, announced her departure on Thursday through LinkedIn.

“After five and a half remarkable years, I have made the decision to step down from my role as Head of Marketing at TOPFX,” the TopFX executive wrote. “It's a tough choice, but I'm excited to take on new challenges and explore different horizons.”

London Stock Exchange Group Sees 7.5% Uptick in Q1 Income

London Stock Exchange Group plc released a trading update, reporting total income of over £2 billion for the first quarter of 2023, which is an increase of 7.5 percent annually. However, foreign exchange revenue declined 0.9 percent to £66 million.

Its income from the data and analytics stream jumped 7.1 percent, capital markets 2.5 percent, and post-trade 16.8 percent.

Counting recoveries, the group's total income came in 7.2 percent higher at £2.1 billion. In addition, it reported a gross profit of more than £1.8 billion, which is 6.5 percent higher.

"Our strategy continues to deliver, with all divisions contributing to growth," said LSEG's CEO, David Schwimmer. "Our performance in the first quarter demonstrated the strength of our business model, the improving quality of our revenue and our critical role in the resilience of financial markets."

Deutsche Bank Mulls Job Cuts as Investment Banking Profit Dips

Deutsche Bank reported a drop of 42 percent in profit to €861 million from its investment banking division, which fell short of market expectations. The unit generated € 2.7 billion in revenue, which is down 19 percent year-over-year, mostly dragged by a decline of 17 percent in fixed income and currencies revenue.

The bank ended the quarter with € 7.7 billion in overall revenue, which is 5 percent higher than the prior year. In addition, its net profit increased 8 percent to €1.3 billion.

The German bank is now planning to cut 800 senior back-office staff as a part of its cost reduction efforts.

USD LIBOR Deadline Approaches

The deadline for the transition from the US dollar (USD) LIBOR is rapidly approaching, with less than three months left until the end of June 2023. While significant strides have been made, crucial work is still being done to finalize the global USD LIBOR transition.

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) strongly urges market participants to finalize the transition of any remaining USD LIBOR-linked contracts as soon as possible. This proactive approach is to avoid a last-minute rush toward the end of June 2023, which could lead to operational risks and potential market disruptions.

The USD LIBOR panel is set to discontinue at the end of June this year. In March 2021, ICE Benchmark Administration (IBA) and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) officially announced that panel bank submissions for overnight, 1-month, 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month USD LIBOR settings would cease by the end of June 2023. After this deadline, representative LIBOR rates will no longer be accessible.

ASIC Cancels License, Releases Updated Guidance

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has canceled the Australian financial services (AFS) license of Assurance Cover Australia Pty Ltd (ACA), effective from 5 April 2023. ACA operated an unregistered managed investment scheme providing coverage through a discretionary mutual fund for peer-to-peer transport industry drivers. ASIC terminated its license as ACA had failed to maintain the mandatory professional indemnity insurance cover since April 2019.

In a separate move today, ASIC presented revised industry guidance for reporting to the regulatory body under the updated reportable situations framework (previously known as the breach reporting regime). The amendments to Regulatory Guide 78, which governs breach reporting by AFS licensees and credit licensees (RG 78), serve to clarify some aspects of the existing guidance. Additionally, they offer new guidance to address operational issues that have surfaced since the regime was put into effect in October 2021.

Nordea Beats Market with Q1 Profits

Nordea, the biggest lender in the Nordic region, ended the first three months of 2023 with an operating profit of 1.48 billion euros, which is up from 1.1 billion a year ago. The number came in higher than the market expectation of 1.36 billion euros.

However, the bank witnessed a yearly decline of 8 percent in its net fee and commission to 765 million euros. On the other hand, the net interest income climbed 35 percent to 1.77 billion euros.

"Despite slowing economic activity, our lending volumes continued to develop positively," said Nordea's Chief Executive, Frank Vang-Jensen.

Hong Kong to Release Crypto Guidelines

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) will release the guidelines for the regulations of cryptocurrency companies next month. The consultation paper for the regulations has already garnered more than 150 responses, the CEO of SFC said.

Earlier, another Hong Kong administration official revealed that 80 cryptocurrency companies are lining up to seek licenses from the jurisdictions. OKX, the second-largest global crypto exchange, is even going to establish a base in Hong Kong.

OKX Wallet Turns into Multi-Chain Platform

OKX has upgraded its OKX Wallet and NFT Marketplace, enabling users to view and transfer Bitcoin (BTC) ordinals. The new features have made the wallet a multi-chain platform, which now supports BTC taproot addresses on the browser extension.

"The OKX Wallet is designed to be the most interoperable and easy to use all-in-one crypto wallet," said Haider Rafique, the Chief Marketing Officer at OKX. "This meant we had to move fast to welcome the ordinals community and give them an easy way to store, manage, and soon mint ordinals within our wallet services."