Win a year of commission-free trading

Tradovate started a pre-launch campaign with a contest for a giveaway of one year of its commission-free futures trading service. Click here to enter.

Fitch Learning appoints new client relationship manager

Fitch Learning appointmented Diane Saucier as Client Relationship Manager, based in Chicago. In this newly created role, Saucier will work closely with the group sales teams to support financial sector clients in their training needs. She will also help introduce clients to other Fitch Group offerings such as financial information and research. 

Prior to joining Fitch Learning, Ms. Saucier was an independent financial market consultant focused on product strategy, business development, market trends, trading and regulatory policy. 

SEC names Shamoil T. Shipchandler as regional director, Fort Worth Office

The U.S. Securites and Exchange Commission named Shamoil T. Shipchandler regional director at its Fort Worth Office. Shipchandler is presently a partner in the law offices of Bracewell & Guiliani LLP in Dallas, where he has focused on white collar criminal defense, internal investigations and compliance, and related civil litigation in matters involving cybersecurity, public corruption, insider trading and other statutory and regulatory matters. Before joining Bracewell, Shipchandler spent almost 10 years in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Texas, where he held positions of increasing authority ending as Deputy Criminal Chief.

• Green Key hires former ICE head of US Sales Ray McKenzie

Green Key Technologies, provider of voice software designed specifically for traders and brokers, announced today the hiring of Ray McKenzie as Head of North American Sales. McKenzie will focus on the North American expansion of Trader Voice Box, a virtual turret that leverages VoIP and replicates the hoot and ring down functionality of traditional hardware turrets and physical lines but at a fraction of the cost. The Green Key VoIP network now includes over 200 of the world's largest banks, brokerage firms and trading firms and has steadily grown since the launch of Green Key in Q1 2014.

• SEC Charges Houston-Area businessman in Ponzi Scheme

The SEC's case filed in federal court in Houston charged Frederick Alan Voight of Richmond, Texas with defrauding more than 300 investors in multiple offerings of promissory notes issued by two partnerships he owns, F.A. Voight & Associates LP and DayStar Funding LP. While Voight's latest offering promised investors returns as high as 42 percent a year from loans to small public companies, most of the funds went to pay earlier investors, the complaint alleges. Approximately $22 million of Voight's allegedly ill-gotten gains remain unaccounted for to date.

• DTCC appoints new European trade repository chief

Andrew Douglas, DTCC's head of government relations in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia, has assumed the additional role of chief executive of DTCC Derivatives Repository Ltd, or DDRL, the European arm of DTCC's global trade repository which provides post-trade and reporting services for both over-the-counter and exchange-traded equity and credit derivatives.

• Tony Dalton Joins R.J. O’Brien as Head of FX Division

Chicago-based R.J. O’Brien & Associates (RJO), the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, announced that Tony Dalton has joined the firm in its New York office as Head of the FX Division. Dalton is widely considered one of the pioneers of foreign exchange (FX) prime brokerage, after building that business for three major global banks.

Phil Fondren will remain an important part of the FX team at RJO and was named Executive Director, FX Administrator.

RJO Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Gerald F. Corcoran said: “Tony has a truly outstanding record of achievement in FX, as well as in client service. We’re thrilled that he has joined us to assume this important new role as we build on the great FX infrastructure we’ve created in the past several years and seek to significantly expand our institutional cash FX business.”

• CBOE's Andy Lowenthal To Lead Business Development For CBOE, CFE, Livevol

CBOE Holdings, Inc. announced it promoted Andy Lowenthal from Vice President to Senior Vice President, Business Development. Lowenthal's promotion comes as part of a reorganization designed to better leverage the company's business development efforts across its expanding line of futures and options products and services.

• ASX to hire former UBS MD to run derivatives

The Australian Securities Exchange is set to hire as its head of derivatives Helen Lofthouse, a managing director at UBS, drawing a line under a search by the exchange which is keen to tap Asia's growing derivatives market. Lofthouse has been UBS's London-based European head of exchange-traded derivatives clearing sales for almost four years since joining the Swiss bank from JP Morgan where she was an executive director and head of fixed income prime brokerage sales for 14 years.

• Santander Consumer USA names former JPM commodities chief Masters as chairman

Santander Consumer Holdings USA has named former JPMorgan Chase & Co executive Blythe Masters as its non-executive chairman, the auto lender said on Wednesday. Masters, 46, succeeds interim chairman Stephen Ferriss at the Dallas-based company. She currently serves as the CEO of Digital Assets Holdings LLC, a Bitcoin-related technology company.

• Barclays fires Antony Jenkins as chief executive

Barclays fired Antony Jenkins as chief executive after just three years after he lost the confidence of its non-executive directors. He was replaced with chairman John McFarlane on an interim basis.