Hotspot, a leading institutional foreign exchange (FX) market owned and operated by BATS Global Markets (BATS), today announced plans to incentivise customers by offering free trading for all transactions on its planned London-based matching engine to the end of 2015.
BATS CEO Chris Concannon said: “We remain on track for our 14th of September launch of the London matching engine and customer demand is strong. Our announcement today is intended to make clear to our European clients that we will be the most aggressive venue on price while building a market with deep, consistent and stable liquidity.”
Mr. Concannon further stated: “Europe is the leading global FX trading centre and a top priority for Hotspot. As the operator of the continent’s #1 equities market, BATS intends to achieve similar status for our European FX business.”
As reported here at LeapRate, Hotspot volumes have been soft in the last few months trending down whilst just reporting the ECN’s lowest metric since December of 2012. While no emergency, it looks like senior management is keen to wheel out top notch trading conditions in order to give a jolt to these fledgling metrics, see the latest Hotspot volume chart below:
In March, Hotspot announced plans to launch the London matching engine to target specific currency pairs that are more active in Europe and attract more participation from Asia. It will complement Hotspot’s New York-area matching engine to give investors two distinct pools of liquidity to drive price formation globally.
The London pricing promotion follows two other previously announced pricing promotions: free gold and silver trading as well as the elimination of liquidity removal fees in more than 30 select currency pairs. Both existing promotions are effective through to the end of 2015.
To view the official release, click here (PDF).