BNY Mellon Hires Neal Thompson to Head its FX Options Business

BNY Mellon ‏has named Neal Thompson as its newest head of its FX options unit in New York, which serves different buy-side institutions to hedge their currency risks in the $6tn a day global FX market.

Thompson has been working in the fixed income industry for nearly three decades, starting his career with Nat West in London and then moving to New York in 1995 to trade with Credit Suisse.

He joined the Wall Street bank from ANZ, where he held an analogous position from 2015 to 2017. Other stops included working as a portfolio manager with BlueCrest Capital Management, and head of Standard Chartered’s New York FX options desk.

Thompson has spent the bulk of his career trading currency derivatives, commodities, exchange-traded instruments, equity indices, and other OTC markets. He was also involved with client marketing, training staff, as well as developing risk management tools.

BNY Mellon rolled out its foreign exchange (FX) options products back in 2018 to allow its clients to better hedge currency exposure. The bank‏ ‏has ventured into the options space to complements its existing foreign exchange business, which consists of FX custody, Payments Payments One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl One of the bases of mediums of exchange in the modern world, a payment constitutes the transfer of a legal currency or equivalent from one party in exchange for goods or services to another entity. The payments industry has become a fixture of modern commerce, though the players involved and means of exchange have dramatically shifted over time.In particular, a party making a payment is referred to as a payer, with the payee reflecting the individual or entity receiving the payment. Most commonl Read this Term, and hedging.

Thompson replaces Sam Osterman, who led the new venture since its inception. Osterman left his job as global head of FX options at BNY Mellon back in May, parting ways with the position he held for nearly 15 months.

BNY Mellon rolls out more FX products

Sam Osterman originally joined BNY Mellon in January 2018 to head the new options business. At the time, BNY Mellon said his appointment is another step in the transformation of the FX business following the hire of Adam Vos as the global head of FX earlier in 2018. His addition was the latest in a series of FX industry veterans in electronic trading, sales, and prime brokerage that joined BNY Mellon Markets over the past two years.

FX options is just one of a number of new services BNY Mellon Markets has introduced ‎to enable its clients to more efficiently access global currency markets. The comprehensive FX suite leverages the bank’s existing pool of Liquidity Liquidity The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent Read this Term, collateral, and funding ‎capabilities and opens it up to its global client base.‎

Earlier last year, BNY Mellon‏ ‏launched a prime brokerage service taking on rivals such as Citi, Deutsche Bank, and JP Morgan. The service enables clients to trade and margin their FX through a counterparty that oversees more than $30 trillion of assets under custody.