e-Forex Magazine | Viewpoint | Closing the FX gap
Viewpoint : Closing the FX gap
First Published in e-Forex Magazine April 2011
Jeff Grossman
Squared Financial Services Ltd (SFSL) launched its platform in 2005. At that stage, electronic trading especially on the FX side was changing rapidly. Like many asset classes in the electronic space - both OTC and Exchange based, FX was becoming more efficient and user friendly at a rapid pace. The origins of this transformation predate the NASDAQ ECNs by many years, and as it accelerated eventhough the equity and futures markets adopted transparent centralized trading more completely, it could be argued that FX, due to its range of products, trading models and participants was approaching true global price discovery more rapidly.
Half a dozen years ago there were still substantial gaps between retail, professional and institutional markets and unlike most financial markets, FX was further complicated by the commercial and treasury related participants in each of these segments. Nevertheless even at a purely commercial and corporate level, FX venues were becoming more competitive, performance-oriented, and user friendly. At a higher volume level, true institutional and professional players were beginning to aggressively bridge the gaps so that the lack of transparency and centralization which was once an outstanding drawback of FX trading now began to evolve into an advantage as the asset class achieved broader and broader global penetration.
