Senior Singapore trader leaves hedge fund after three years, returns to banking

Kunal Biswas, a former Credit Suisse director in emerging markets Asia FX trading who left for the buy-side in 2016, has returned to banking to join Nomura in Singapore. Biswas is an executive director in flow FX at the Japanese bank, says a source with knowledge of the move.

He led the Asian FX trading team at Credit Suisse in Singapore from 2011 to 2016, and was “responsible for market-making and risk taking across all Asian NDFs and deliverable currencies”, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Biswas then became a portfolio manager at RV Capital Management, a Singapore-based hedge fund with a macro strategy and a focus on long/short investments in Asian interest rates, foreign exchange and credit markets.

At Nomura, Biswas is a replacement for Binoy John, an FX trader who joined from JP Morgan in 2016 and is now understood to be moving to the buy-side himself.

John is not the only FX trader to have left Nomura in Singapore recently. Devvrat Tripathi, a former Nomura rates trading executive director, joined Crescent Asset Management earlier this month as a portfolio manager, according to his LinkedIn profile. Mohan Raj Gupta, head of Southeast Asia and Greater China rates trading, has also left Nomura, according to our source.

A spokesperson for Nomura declined to comment on the moves.

The departing traders are understood to have chosen to leave, and their exits are not believed to be linked to the ex-Japan redundancies that Nomura announced in April under a plan to revive its overseas businesses.

While Nomura’s Singapore equities research team was affected by the April job cuts, Biswas’ hire as a replacement for John suggests the firm is continuing to invest in its Singapore FX team. Replacements for Tripathi and Gupta are also understood to be joining Nomura shortly.

Biswas, who has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, began his career as an FX trader at Citi in Mumbai in 2003. He moved to JP Morgan’s Mumbai office in 2006 and relocated to Singapore with the US bank in 2010 as a VP in EM Asia rates trading.

Image credit: Tanner Larson, Unsplash

Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Email: smortlock@efinancialcareers.com or Telegram: @simonmortlock

We are on Telegram! Join us now