BNP Paribas has appointed Graham Barnfield, who has held a variety of senior foreign Exchange roles, as the new head of its Asia FX & Rates Overseas unit.
Barnfield stepped down from Barclays in December 2018, where he last served as head of EM FX Forwards & NDF trading in Europe, his LinkedIn profile shows.
During his six-year tenure with the British lender, Graham held a range of senior roles in the foreign exchange unit. These included vice president of emerging markets and Asia FX trading, where he was based out of Singapore.
Graham Barnfield
In his elevated role, Barnfield will take an increased leadership role with responsibilities across all FX products, and with teams across the bank to deepen client relationships and accelerate the growth of BNP’s FX business. He will also oversee FX and rates distribution to all institutional clients in Asia and will work with management to review the Asian institutional sales organization.
BNP reshuffles FX business after hefty fines
The flow of FX talent at the French banking giant goes both ways, however. While BNP is hiring in traders from other banks, it’s also losing them to rivals – including in the retail space. Earlier last year, ADS Securities bolstered its prime of prime (PoP) solutions with the addition of Louisa Kwok, who previously served with BNP as its European Head of Client Solutions and Fixed Income Client Clearing.
In January, BNP Paribas was slapped with a $90 million fine in a settlement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ), over its attempts to manipulate foreign exchange markets.
The move made BNP one of the last big banks to reach a settlement for FX rigging. Other banks have also faced huge fines for allowing their traders to club together to rig prices in FX markets. Last year, four banks – Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase – pleaded guilty to conspiracy to rig the foreign exchange market and fines totaling $5.6 billion were handed down by the US Department of Justice.
