Bank One to hire six forex options traders

Chicago-based Bank One is set to hire six foreign exchange options staff around the world in a bid to capture more top-tier corporate business.

Two are set to join in London, two in Tokyo and two more will join the bank’s existing team of two in Chicago, which is managed by Justin Foley, said Al Jirkovsky Bank One’s global head of foreign exchange in Chicago.

Jirkovsky said seven other hires would join the bank’s sales team in Chicago – three in corporate sales, three in mid-market sales and one in institutional sales.

This will enable the bank to expand its client base from its traditional mid-market focus, Jirkovsky told RiskNews’ sister publication FX Week. “We will continue to serve that client base, but we also want to get into large corporate business and build our institutional capital markets business,” he said, adding that expansion comes after a period of contraction at the bank. “The bank did a lot of cutting before I joined and we’re now looking to hire back quality people,” said Jirkovsky.

Another impetus for expansion came from a restructuring last January, when foreign exchange became part of Bank One’s capital markets division. “Compared to other capital markets products we saw that FX was lacking in the attention it had received,” Foley said. “It is now seen as a key component of our capital markets business.”

Bank One has already made a start on its recruitment drive –both Jirkovsky and Foley are themselves recent additions to the bank. Both were previously at Bank of America in Chicago - Jirkovsky joined Bank One in April, while Foley arrived last December.

Other recent hires include former ING dealer Nick Savramis, who joined the institutional sales desk in Chicago, managed by Ralph Delzenero, in October; Kirsten Poulsen, who joined the sales team in London last September from Nordea Bank; and Akira Asakawa, who joined Bank One in Tokyo in December as deputy treasurer under Asian-Pacific FX and money markets head Tim Hughes. Asakawa previously worked at multi-bank portal Atriax.

Meanwhile, in Mexico City, Alehandro Bringas joined Bank One in October as a corporate FX sales dealer from Mexican bank Inverlat.

In addition, the bank promoted Delzenero to his current position from the corporate sales team, and transferred FX sales dealer Craig Schultz from Sydney to London.