Australian Foreign Exchange Committee Meeting Minutes

Sydney – 8 November 2017

Download [PDF 89K]

Attendees

Guy Debelle, RBA (Chair); Christopher Kent, RBA; Keith Sedergreen, ACI Australia; Mark McCarthy, AFMA; Luke Marriott, ANZ; Mark Ferguson, Australian Super; Winnie Tan, Bank of China; Stewart Cox, BHP Billiton (via conference call); Andrew Walsh, Citigroup; Lee Merchant, Deutsche Bank; Simon Watkin, NEX; Stephen Gilmore, Future Fund; David Nolan, Goldman Sachs; Andrew Mourd, JP Morgan; Will Richardson, Macquarie Bank; Mark Lawler, National Australia Bank; Stuart Simmons, QIC; Gary Latner, Thomson Reuters; Graeme Edie, Westpac; Chris Knight, XTX Markets

Apologies

Simon Warner, AMP Capital; Rachael Hoey, CLS; David Hatzidis, CBA

Secretariat

Matthew Boge, RBA (Secretary); Jason Griffin, RBA

1. Minutes of previous meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting were accepted without modification.

2. Matters arising from the Minutes

Graeme Edie provided an update on GFMA discussions around the issue of Monday opening hours; the GFXD was considering a survey on the topic with the results expected in the New Year.

Members discussed opening hours for Christmas Day. While dealing platforms would be available for trading from 5:00 am (Sydney), many market makers said they would inform their clients that they would open at 8:00 am (Tokyo) on Christmas day.

3. GFXC Meeting on 14 November

1. Consultation on Last Look

   The Secretary updated members on the GFXC's Request for Feedback on Last Look. The submissions received by the GFXC had been published the previous week. There was strong consensus support for the proposed revisions to the Code in the GFXC Secretariat's draft report to be discussed at the upcoming GXFX meeting in London. Members expressed the view that they would not be comfortable if the proposed language were weakened at all. Some members commented that guidance for ‘cover-and-deal’-style transactions would need to be carefully worded, or risked reducing the effectiveness of the recommendations. One member suggested the addition of an example in the FX Global Code's annex around pricing during the last look window would be beneficial.

2. GFXC Governance

   There was a brief discussion of a draft paper from the GFXC Secretariat on GFXC governance, with the paper outlining membership criteria, including the possibility of an ‘associate member’ category.

4. Update on AFXC member's Statements of Commitments

Members discussed their progress towards signing Statements of Commitment to the FX Global Code. Of AFXC members, Citigroup, CLS, QIC, the Reserve Bank of Australia and Westpac had signed Statements of Commitments. Several other members noted their Statements would be signed by the end of the year. Some buy-side participants provided a briefing on their considerations when signing Statements of Commitment.

5. Update on public registers for Statements of Commitments

The member from AFMA provided an update on their plans for a public register for Statements of Commitment, which is expected to go live in December.

6. Rotation of AFXC membership

The Chair thanked David Nolan (Goldman Sachs) for his service, and noted that David Kendrick (HSBC) would rejoin the committee in the New Year. The Chair's proposal to invite Simon Sukhaseume (State Street Global Advisors Australia) to join the committee in 2018 met broad acceptance.

Guy Debelle also announced that this would be his last meeting as Chair of the AFXC. Chris Kent (RBA) will take over as Chair going forward. Chris Kent and Darryl Hooker (NEX) would represent the AFXC at the upcoming GFXC meeting in London.

7. General business

Members raised concerns that some other jurisdictions in the region had included local annexes to the FX Global Code.

8. Next meeting

To be advised.