e-Forex Magazine | Features | The 2011 Lab49 FX Platform survey results What the buy-side really wants in their SDP
Features : The 2011 Lab49 FX Platform survey results What the buy-side really wants in their SDP
First Published in e-Forex Magazine January 2012
The results are now in from the buy-side. The 2011 Lab49 FX Platform Survey reveals what single dealer platform users really want from their FX trading platforms.
The survey was designed to solicit opinions on how well single dealer platforms deliver on their feature and functionality promises across the FX trading lifecycle. Traditionally, execution functionality in combination with the fundamentals of price, latency and liquidity was the top consideration for most users. While these fundamentals are still important, different user groups have different needs. Real Money users, for example, rely heavily on allocations and other post-trade functions, while many corporates need the ability to import groups of trades from Excel. Single dealer platforms need to be strong across the appropriate feature set in order to serve their target client segments successfully.
The FX platform survey was conducted online during the 4th Quarter of 2011. Lab49 conducted its inaugural survey of single dealer platforms in conjunction with e-Forex magazine polling Hedge Funds, Real Money Managers, Corporates, Regional and Private Banks and individual traders. We invited single dealer platform users themselves to participate in the survey via email.
Respondents were asked to identify their institution type and products traded before ranking the two platforms they use most often to trade FX. Next, respondents were asked to indicate the importance to them of a variety of features and functionalities across the trading lifecycle as well as the usability of the platform. Each respondent's selection of single dealer platform was then crossed with the list of features, and respondents were asked to rate their chosen platforms' performance along the range of features and functionalities. Results were further processed to remove incomplete or obviously biased responses from the final set.