BankMuscat Global Markets has a state of the art integrated dealing room located at Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. The dealing room offers full range of vanilla and derivative products in forex, interest rates and commodities. These include spot, forward, swaps, currency options, interest rate derivatives, commodity futures and options in addition to high yield structured deposits linked to currencies, interest rates and commodities.

We are a leading market maker in USD/OMR spot and swaps. Our office is open 365 days and executes clients’ transactions round the clock.

Our Global Markets has the following desks
● FX Sales
● Structured Products
● Money Markets
● Interbank FX
● Commodities
● Fixed Income Origination
 

FX Sales Desk

FX Sales Desk is fully geared to offer advisory services & solutions to Corporates and Institutions for hedging of Foreign Exchange Risks.

Vanilla Products
Spot Contract - A foreign exchange contract that allows you to convert foreign currency at today's market foreign exchange rate. In most cases, final settlement occurs two business days later. Spot contracts are used when you must make a payment for products or services in a foreign currency or when you wish to convert foreign currency into U.S. dollars (USD).

Forward Contract - Forward foreign exchange contracts are used to protect your profit margin when receiving or making a foreign currency payment at some point in the future, usually as a result of foreign sales or purchases. A forward contract that "locks-in" the foreign exchange rate for a future date eliminates the effect that a change in the foreign exchange rate would have on your profits. Customers must have an approved credit facility with the bank (i.e., a foreign exchange credit line) to enter into foreign exchange contracts.

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Structured Products Desk

Structured Products Desk is fully geared to offer advisory services & structured solutions to Corporates and Institutions for hedging of Foreign Exchange and Interest Rate risks. It also offers advisory and risk management services in Commodity Derivatives to Corporates for hedging their risks and for investment diversification purposes.

Vanilla Options
CALL and PUT Options are advanced hedging instruments used to hedge your imports and exports.
Call Options - provide the holder the right but not the obligation to purchase an underlying asset at a given price for a specified date and time.
Put Options - provide the holder the right but not the obligation to sell an underlying asset at a given price for a specified date and time.

Barrier Options
Barrier options are vanilla European options with the addition of either one or two barriers which act to either extinguish or activate the option. They are also known as trigger options. The barrier is in effect during the whole life of the option and as such can be described as an American style barrier. The various types of barriers are knock in, knock out, double knock in, knock in with rebate, among others.

Digitals / Binary Options
Binary options are a particular type of barrier option. For the buyer of the binary, breaching the barrier activates or extinguishes a fixed payout. If hitting the barrier activates a payout, this will be made at expiration. The barrier is in effect during the whole life of the option and as such is an American style barrier. These options are also known as American style digitals or “All or Nothing” options. The payout can be in either currency of the chosen currency pair. Binary options can be one touch, no touch, double touch, one touch with knock in, among others.

Faders
Fader is an option where the notional of the option at expiration depends on if the fixing rate of the spot at some predetermined fixing dates is above/below a predetermined trigger, or inside/outside a predetermined range. At expiration the notional depends on the ratio of number of fixings in which the condition was met over the total number of fixings.

Straddle
A call and a put option with the same strike price, expiry and amount. The most commonly traded straddles are the ATMF where the strike price is equal to the forward price of the underlying asset or delta neutral straddle, where both the put and call will have delta of 50. The ATMF or delta neutral straddle is used as the benchmark volatility quote in the OTC currency option market.

Strangle
A call and a put with the same expiry and amount but different strike prices. Strangles are commonly described as 25 delta, 15 delta and so on. This is where both the call and put have the same delta. Volatility quotes for strangles are also used as benchmarks in the OTC currency option market as part of the process of creating a volatility surface.

Interest Rate Swaps
Interest rate swaps are often used by companies to alter their exposure to interest-rate fluctuations, by swapping fixed-rate obligations for floating rate obligations, or swapping floating rate obligations to fixed-rate obligations. By swapping interest rates, a company is able to alter their interest rate exposures and bring them in line with management's appetite for interest rate risk.

Currency Swaps
A currency swap is a foreign exchange agreement between two parties to exchange a given amount of one currency for another and, after a specified period of time, to give back the original amounts swapped. These swaps are used by companies to hedge the risk due to currency fluctuations.

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Money Markets Desk

Money Markets Desk does borrowing and lending in the Interbank markets and manages the liquidity and cashflows of the Bank. It also looks after short term and long-term investments of the Bank.

Certificate of Deposits
BankMuscat offers Certificate of Deposits in Omani Rial and US Dollar. OMR CDs are issued on a fixed rate and USD CDs on a floating rate basis.

BankMuscat subscribes to CDs issued by the Central Bank of Oman for 28 days, 91 days and 182 days.

Government Development Bonds
BankMuscat also subscribes to Government Development Bonds (GDBs), which are issued by the Central Bank of Oman for 3 to 5 years.

Repo
BankMuscat also uses its CDs and GDBs, which are repurchased or repoed with Central Bank of Oman or other Banks. This is done from O/N to 28 days. Eligible commercial Bills and promissory notes are also discounted with Central Bank of Oman.

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Interbank FX Desk

Interbank FX Desk offers market making in OMR and is active in G7 currencies in both spot and forward. It is primarily responsible to hedge the Foreign Exchange risk of the Bank and also offers its services to local financial institutions.

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Commodities Desk

Commodities Desk offers commodities risk management advisory services to the Corporate customers for their hedging, investment and trading requirements. We are offering the following products in precious metals, base metals and Oil & Gas:
● OTC forward, and
● Swaps and Options;

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Fixed Income Origination

BankMuscat has initiated and issued the following instruments:

Certificate of Deposits
During the Year 2003, BankMuscat issued CDs worth OMR 74 Mn. CDs issued during the Year 2004 are worth OMR 52 Mn. The maturity of the CDs is 3 to 5 years

Bonds
During the Years 2003 and 2004, BankMuscat issued 10-Year BankMuscat Bonds worth OMR 25 Mn. and OMR 30 Mn. respectively.

Euro Medium Term Notes (EMTN)
During the Year 2004 BankMuscat issued 5-Year FRN worth USD 250 Mn. under its EMTN Program.

Subordinated Loans
During the Year 2001, BankMuscat issued Sub Loan Notes worth OMR 40 Mn. maturing in March 2006.

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