Bank of America is very quietly hiring senior fixed income traders

Banks' fixed income currencies and commodities (FICC) businesses aren't having an especially good year. In the first quarter, revenues at nine large firms (Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Deutsche Bank, UBS and Credit Suisse) fell by an average of 12% compared with the first quarter of 2012, according to figures from Nomura.

In the circumstances, fixed income firing might seem more apt than hiring. Bank of America is bucking that trend.

Information from the newly reassigned Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) Register - formerly known as the FSA register - reveals that Bank of America has added four senior fixed income professionals to its London business in the past month.

The new hires detailed by the FCA are: James Coulton, an emerging markets foreign exchange (FX) trading veteran who spent 15 years at Goldman Sachs - most recently as head of emerging markets FX;  Jonathan Hughes, a former senior FX salesman at Credit Suisse; Stephen Porter, formerly a derivatives salesperson at Royal Bank of Scotland; and Shivaprashanth Vaidya (commonly known as SN Vaidya), a Morgan Stanley rates trader.

Bank of America didn't respond to a request to comment on its recruitment. Christian Robbins, director at recruitment firm Cherry Bull, said Bank of America is rumoured to be hiring across rates sales and trading. This is despite the fact that revenues in rates sales and trading are forecast to plummet this year.