Leader : Strengthening client relations with FX e-services

First Published in e-Forex Magazine April 2012

Nicholas Pratt

As many leading FX providers are now adopting more client-centric strategies when rolling out new electronic products and trading platforms, Nicholas Pratt explores in what ways electronic FX services can help improve and engender more productive client relationships.

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The clearest trend in the last ten years within the FX market has been the embracing of electronic services. For the FX dealing banks, adapting to the pervasive presence of e-commerce has not always been an easy task. Many of the early attempts by banks to create their own web-based trading portals proved unsuccessful, especially when competing against the multi-bank portals that emerged at the turn of the millennium, such as FXAll, Currenex and others.

There was also the feeling that electronic execution left banks vulnerable to being scalped by the opportunist high frequency traders that trawled the markets looking for pricing anomalies. More recently, however, the single bank platforms have undergone a resurgence. This could be a result of a general return to the traditional, transparent values of the relationship-based FX market of yesteryear and less preference for the less personalised environment of the multi-bank portals. Another explanation is more straight-forward - banks and other leading FX providers have got better at developing e-services and realised that good, quality electronic FX e-services can help to engender more productive client relationships.