Tradition’s ParFX goes live as a new Forex ECN

Gerald Segal
April 18, 2013 10:51 am

First major (planned) competitor to FXall, EBS, Hotspot FX et al to actually launch.

France’s Tradition S.A. today announced the formal launch of ParFX, its new spot FX ECN. The launch follows a period of testing with many global banks and independent software vendors. The platform is now open to all banks able to settle via CLS.

We recently reported that two leading Japanese banking groups, Mitsubishi UFJ and Nomura, are joining nine other banks (Barclays, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Canada, SEB, Standard Chartered, State Street and UBS) in backing ParFX. Note that Tradition had previously named the venture TraFXpure.

  • As we wrote back in May when we broke the story on the planned venture, Tradition and its banking partners decided to launch a new Forex ECN as a response to the failure of existing ECNs (namely, ICAP’s EBS) to nullify the predatory behaviour of some high-frequency traders, who seemed to have had an unfair advantage from a technology and market data perspective. Since then, EBS has indeed lost its leading position in the industry, now sitting behind Thomson Reuters and FXall — which will soon be combined, after Thomson Reuters purchased FXall last year.

    • Tradition itself is seeing some tough times, recently reporting that 2012 revenues were down 9% from 2011, with the second half of the year being 14% lower.

    For the complete ParFX press release click here.

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

    LeapRate Analyst
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