Aiming for transparency, the Benchmark will be free and is developed in tandem with Stanford University researchers
Californian company Integral Development corp. has announced the launch of Integral FX Benchmark – the solution to the worries of regulators and in recent light, jokingly, the cure against currency rates manipulators. Integral FX Benchmark (FXB) is a set of second-by-second foreign exchange benchmark rates for major currency pairs.
FXB will provide a one of a kind solution by being the first tool to provide benchmark rates for each second of each trading day deriving it from a broad data set of market rates and trades. The tool will provide traders and investors with an indispensable helper that analyses the execution quality of their deals and performs a Transaction Cost Analysis (TCA) for them.
To develop underlying methodologies used within the product, the firm has teamed up with researchers from the Stanford University and received feedback from buy side FX market participants. Get ready for the best part of it – all of this critical information will be provided for free.
The company argues that existing fixings are not an efficient way to serve the industry, as they are calculated infrequently. There is no need to mention recent 4pm FX fixings manipulation investigations, Integral Development states that FX has no source of reference rates as of now and investors and traders are not allowed to benchmark their execution on a continuing basis.
The company’s CEO Harpal Sandhu said that this is a part of the company’s efforts to reduce market friction and increase transparency. He stated that as a neutral technology provider that is operating one of the largest OTC FX networks the company is in a unique position to offer such a service for forex market participants.
Integral’s benchmarks will be available from January 15th 2014 and will be available for download each day after the close of trading in New York for the following pairs: AUD/USD, EUR/USD, GBP/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CAD, USD, CHF and USD/JPY. The address at which they will be available online is FXBenchmark.Integral.com, one can pre-register on the same address starting today.
For the full press release by the Californian company visit Integral’s website.
For more on the global Forex industry see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.