… however that was off a weak August base. Year-over-year, EBS volumes are down 27%.

Is this an indication of forex industry weakness during September, or indicative of problems specifically at ICAP and its EBS forex ECN unit? Our take? Probably a little bit of both.

After August EBS volumes were at their lowest levels in eight years, EBS reported September FX trading volumes at $81.2 billion (average daily volume for the month). That is marginally (3%) up from the low August base, but well below (-27%) what EBS did last September — and even worse (-39%) when compared to EBS’s average volumes of about $132 billion daily during the first six months of this year (see chart below).

To be fair, we saw a very similar higher-than-August but lower-than-last-year September result from the CME Group in forex futures volumes.

After two strong months to start the year, things have slowed down a little as EBS fights it out with Thomson Reuters and FXall for leadership of the Forex ECN sector.

We should get Thomson Reuters and FXall figures in the coming days for comparison. Stay tuned to LeapRate…

For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.