BGC Partners, an intermediary to the wholesale financial markets, has appointed Vanessa Ko as director, regional head of e-commerce for Asia Pacific.

Ko will spearhead the continued expansion of BGC’s electronic coverage in the region with the roll-out of BGC’s electronic platform, BGC Trader, for multiple new products over the coming year.

Ko joined BGC in 2005 as a product manager for credit and has been responsible for the rapid expansion of electronic brokerage in products including Japanese CDS and Asian CDS indices, Australian corporate bonds and government bonds.

BGC has also promoted Norliza Kamardin as associate director of e-commerce for Asia. Kamardin joined BGC in 2008 from Tullett Prebon as a product manager for e-commerce, covering FX options, CDS and US treasuries. Kamardin will be responsible for the marketing and day-to-day operations of BGC’s electronic products for Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.

Philip Norton, executive managing director and global head of e-commerce, says: “We’ve seen tremendous demand for electronic brokerage in Asia – in the past year we have more than quadrupled the number of products that are traded fully-electronically in the region. These promotions further strengthen our team as we continue to build new tools and capabilities - such as Volume Match and pre-trade analytics - within our BGC Trader platform to support our customers’ evolving trading requirements.”