A London trader understood to be at the centre of a fresh $120m (€95m) trading scandal at Merrill Lynch was this morning absent from the UK's register of regulated professionals, suggesting he may have been suspended.

Alexis Stenfors, said to be a currency trader at Merrill Lynch, is thought to have recorded a roughly $120m trading profit last year, before risk officers from Bank of America, Merrill Lynch's new owner, unearthed irregularities in his account and discovered substantial losses on the currency bets, according to The New York Times, citing people familiar with the matter.