Christopherson Retires From Forex After A 41-Year Career In The Market

John Christopherson, most recently senior vice president and regional treasurer of Banco Português do Atlântico in New York, has retired after 41 years in the markets. During his tenure, Christopherson switched banks only eight times and was active in foreign exchange associations spanning the globe.

Christopherson's career started in 1953 at the former Imperial Bank of Canada in Toronto (now Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce), as a teller. After two years, he transferred to the bank's expanding foreign exchange trading desk.

"In those days, nobody ever voluntarily went into foreign exchange - only because nobody knew what it was," he says. "I subsequently found out my qualifications for being transferred into the foreign exchange department of that bank. Sterling was one of the most important trading currencies in those days, so having been born in England, they figured I could count in pounds, shillings and pence."

"And, as I'd been a very accurate teller, they thought I was good with numbers," he adds. "So the transfer into foreign exchange trading was purely and simply accidental."

Christopherson, now almost 62 years old, stayed at Imperial Bank until 1961, when he moved to New York to work for Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago (later to become Continental Bank). After six years as a trader in New York, Christopherson was transferred to Continental's London branch where he was the chief trader from 1967 until 1972.

He returned to Canada in early 1972, on joining Bank of Montreal (BMo) as head of global FX trading. He again returned to New York in 1975, when he went to United California Bank International, as head of the global FX trading group.

After a year there, he moved to Chemical Bank as its New York office foreign exchange manager. In 1982 he left Chemical for Bank of New York as global forex manager, but joined the Commercial Bank of Kuwait two years later as its first treasurer.

In July 1988, he made his final move to Banco Português, where he started as a vice president and ended up as senior vice president and treasurer until retiring six years later.

Margaret 'Gretchen' Greene, senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who helped set up the FX Committe and served as its secretary until November last year, says: "John was someone who commanded respect from the marketplace because he understood it. He was a sympathetic individual who people turned to and was very effective in communicating concerns at an international level."

Tim Summerfield, now a senior FX trader at Bank of Boston, has known Christopherson since he transferred to Continental Illinois' London branch nearly 30 years ago. "I'd have to say, all the way through, he's always been a good friend, a gentleman and a professional, who has known the marketplace and been part of it," says Summerfield.

Christopherson has become a well-known industry figure partly because of his work for the forex clubs. He joined the Forex Club of New York (later the Forex Association of N.A.) in 1961 and belonged to the London Forex Club's committee when he moved there for Continental in 1967. When he joined BMo in 1972, Christopherson says he created the Canadian Forex Club and was elected as its first president.

Once he returned to New York in 1975, he became president of the N.A. Forex Association and held that position for three years. Later, he became vice chairman of the Committee for Professionalism of the Association Cambiste Internationale. He will carry on in that post until November, when he officially resigns.

In addition to these jobs, Christopherson was also an observer on the Federal Reserve's FX Committee, representing the Forex Association of N.A., and later became an alternate, and then a full member, of the committee.

Jim Borden, 1992 chairman of the FX Committee says Christopherson was on the committee when he first joined the group around 1980. "John was one of the early organisers and one of the mainstays of the committee for a long time," says Borden. "He served very diligently on the market practices committee and I remember being engaged with John in many interesting and developmental discussions in terms of where we were going to go with the committee itself and particularly what we were going to do with trading and market practices."

As he leaves the markets, Christopherson says he sees some reduction in mainstream market growth partly due to potential constraints from regulators concerned about FX derivatives. "The market itself is probably the last unregulated market in the world," he says. "While I don't foresee the market itself being regulated, I do see that the participants in the market are being more regulated. So there's a secondary effect, if you will."

Christopherson says he thinks a certain degree of regulation amongst participants is necessary; however, he warns that there is a tendency for regulators to get involved in "micro-management," which changes the strategies and behaviour of the market participants.

However, he says, he expects the market to expand in other areas, chiefly in exotic currencies. " Besides the Far Eastern currencies where growth has already become evident, he says to look for the opening up of South American currencies.

"Without putting a time frame on it, that's the next area that we'll see more liberalism than in the past," he says, adding that the whole Eastern bloc could also gradually open up.