Several newcomers, added to larger incumbents, all vying for falling volumes.
As we’ve written recently, a number of Forex spot ECN aggregators have popped up in the past year, including tpSPOTDEAL (backed by Integral and Tullett Prebon), FastMatch (FXCM and Credit Suisse), traFXpure (Tradition), and MoltenFX. And this comes at a time when all the major established Forex ECNs except for perhaps FXall — Thomson Reuters, ICAP-EBS and Hotspot FX — are seeing volumes well below last year’s levels.
We’d like to point out an interesting article at Automated Trader, discussing the situation.
Our view remains that this seeming (over-)competition has been very good for both the retail FX firms and their trading clients — both market-makers and agent firms. The retail brokers get more hedging options, at lower cost, and the increased competition means lower spreads that do indeed trickle down to the trading clients.
Let us know your thoughts, in our comments section below. (All authentic comments will be published).
For more on the global FX market see the LeapRate-Dow Jones Forex Industry Report.