Credit Suisse just announced a major shakeup in its electronic trading business to compete with the fastest traders on Wall Street

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Credit Suisse just announced a major shakeup in its electronic trading business to compete with the fastest traders on Wall Street

Tidjane Thiam Credit Suisse

REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam of Swiss bank Credit Suisse speaks during the Forum 100 conference in Lausanne, Switzerland May 19, 2016.

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  • Credit Suisse has reorganized execution services within its equities business so the business is run under one umbrella, rather than separately.
  • The move is intended to help the Swiss bank better compete with high frequency trading firms.

Credit Suisse is reorganizing its execution services business to better compete with the likes of Virtu and Citadel.

The Swiss bank named electronic trading veteran Anthony Abenante to a new role heading global execution services within its equities unit, according to an internal memo seen by Business Insider. The position will bring together the high touch, program trading and electronic trading groups under a single umbrella, as they were previously run separately. Abenante will report to Mike Stewart, who joined Credit Suisse in 2017 from UBS to head up equities.

Abenante said the new structure will hopefully enable Credit Suisse traders to incorporate technology more efficiently into their day-to-day so they can go up against nimble competitors in the high frequency trading world.

"Our competitors announce new hires because they have that Silicon Valley cache ... but how do we bring those emerging technologies, sift out the false profit, and find signal out of all of this noise?" Abernate said in an interview with Business Insider. "How do we incorporate machine learning to help our sales traders be better at their job? Ultimately this will make for a much more efficient desk, exchanging information at speeds you couldn't imagine today."

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Other changes to the group announced in the memo include: John Comerford to run execution products; Doug Crofton, Jim McKeever and Gerry Milligan to continue to run America's execution; Chris Marsh and Stuart McGuire to head EMEA execution; and Julian Corner as COO for global execution services.

Credit Suisse is bolstering its equities business in the US more broadly with new senior talent as it tries to grab market share from leaders Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Stewart has said he wants to make Credit Suisse into a top five equities player.

Alexander Englander joined the bank in May as the head of equity sales in the Americas from Barclays, Business Insider previously reported.

The build out also comes as banks reported record equities revenue in the first quarter, as volatility sparked and markets whipsawed back and forth on account of fears of a potential US trade war.

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