Howard, you started financial markets trading in 1986. Are you surprised at the way FX trading has changed, particularly with regard to electronic trading, since you began your career?

When I started in the Foreign Exchange market over 25 years ago we executed our business over the telex, telephone and through voice brokers, and we monitored our risk using manually written tickets and positions calculated on blotters. Dealing rooms were noisy, intimating almost chaotic places with mountains of paper and high instances of "out-trades"!

It was hard then to imagine a distant world of "STP", real-time valuations and risk analysis, paperless dealing rooms, instant executions with the click of a mouse and even robotic systems built to auto-trade without any dealer intervention.

Looking back, these changes have been more of an evolution rather than a revolution, and whilst increases in technological advancements, liquidity, user participation and the methods to trade in FX have been phenomenal, witnessing this innovation and growth as it is happening has almost made it appear methodical, logical and even protracted.