Reuters – Scrambling for business, trying to attract hedge funds and changing ownership — currency trading platforms are having a busy year.
Signs of increasing volume in the global foreign exchange markets — $1.9 trillion a day at the last official count — and a huge influx of business from hedge funds and others who trade fast and often, have boosted currency trading platforms.
The interbank market has used electronic trading services for years, but other players — funds, corporates and smaller banks — previously used telephone trading.
Electronic trading platforms aimed at these markets started around five years ago, but their strength is growing, market participants say.
“The whole marketplace is in a state of flux at the moment, no one really knows what’s happening,” said Ian Marsh, Professor of Finance at Cass Business School in London. “We have moved from the world of market-maker banks, the interbank market, to the new liquidity which is coming from hedge funds.”
