First Republic, the San Francisco-headquartered private bank and wealth manager, which is a division of Merrill Lynch, has hired Andrew Smaltz as managing director of foreign exchange.

Mr Smaltz joins from Royal Bank of Scotland, where he was a vice president in its foreign exchange and derivatives group. Before RBS, he worked at ABN AMRO and FleetBoston Financial.

From First Republic's office in Century City, Mr Smaltz will help manage the foreign exchange needs of clients in southern California.

First Republic Bank has offices up and down the US west coast and in Las Vegas, Boston and New York.