Bank of America Merrill Lynch has made several new appointments within its electronic sales trading team.

Kelly Zaremba has been appointed head of the electronic sales trading desk while Allison Jacobs and Scott Ranzman also join the electronic sales trading group as vice presidents.

"We are evolving our client coverage model and these most recent changes take us to the next level," explains Zaremba. "The key objectives are to continue developing client relationships, developing pro-active calls and provide additional customizations for clients."

Zaremba, who reports to John Goeller, director of global execution services at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has been a senior member of the firm's execution services team for four years and has also worked on the U.S. cash-trading desk.

"We are evolving the group into a proactive sales trading model with a focus on real-time algorithmic trading strategy education as well as performance monitoring," says Zaremba. She adds that the desk is becoming more of a "hybrid, medium-touch type of desk."

The group has a team approach to client coverage and works closely with their sales counter parts as well as quantitative consultants and product management groups.

Zaremba says that Bank of America Merrill Lynch is also working to build out its options electronic trading offerings, something Jacobs' background will be key for.

"She helped build out the options electronic trading platform at Credit Suisse and has great relationships within the listed options community," says Zaremba.

"We're part of global execution services and part of that mandate is to extend our electronic offering across equities, options and futures horizontally across the organization," adds Goeller.

Zaremba adds that the firm rolled out its Canadian interlisted trading engine in late 2008 and launched algorithms in Brazil this year and it looking to launch into additional Latin American markets as well. "Our sales trading desk will cover all of the Americas " the U.S., Canada and Latin America - in coordination with similar groups in London and Asia," notes Zaremba.

Looking forward, Goeller says that the firm is working to assist clients in real-time trade monitoring by investing in visualization tools within the order management system (OMS). "It allows us to identify issues before the client calls us so we can help them more proactively," he says.