This French bank is quietly building a macro business on Wall Street

Looking for a macro derivatives trading or funding job on Wall Street? Credit Agricole has been hiring.

Insiders at the French bank say it's building up a fixed income rates and solutions business in the U.S. and that there have been several big hires in recent months.

Credit Agricole's quiet Wall Street hires include Kashif Zafar, Barclays' ex-head of global macro products, whose arrival we first reported in September.  They also include Yang Tang, a former vice president in structured rates at Deutsche Bank (who was recruited to DB by the also now-departed Sam Wisnia). There's Dan Haehnel (ex-SocGen) who joined in April to run inflation trading and Dave Steckl, who joined in October as head of rates sales and short term rates solutions. Steckl previously worked for Deutsche Bank on Wall Street, but seemingly quit for UBS after bonuses weren't paid in 2017. Now he's moved on again.

Credit Agricole's quiet hiring spree has been accompanied by some equally big exits, suggesting the bank may be upgrading and replacing as well as expanding. For example, Douglas Jordan, the bank's former NY head of G10 FX trading, left in July and is now at Worldview FX Consulting.

Credit Agricole can afford to expand: in the first nine months of 2018, the cost income ratio at Credit Agricole's corporate and investment bank was only 54%. The push into U.S. macro trading comes after Credit Agricole pruned its trading operations six years ago, with the closure of its equity derivatives and commodities businesses. It also comes as banks like Deutsche have been looking to cut costs by pruning their macro businesses in the U.S., releasing macro professionals onto the market.

French bank BNP Paribas is also upgrading its macro (FX and rates) business. Despite laying off people in London, BNP has also been hiring. Last month it added Serdar Baykal, an emerging markets trader from HSBC. Now it's also recruited James Harris, an FX spot trader from Credit Suisse.

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