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07
Jun
CitiFX has record volume; Award winning QuantumFX handles it

CitiFX saw record levels of activity on Thursday, 06JUN2013 in terms of the number of trades processed, surpassing the previous record set on 23MAY2013. The average daily number of tickets processed in June is 20% higher than in May. In annualized terms, 60% more tickets are going through the system than a year ago. Turnover in JPY accounted for 43% of the tickets generated on 06JUN2013

“While the focus tends to be on front-end efficiency, it has to be remembered that if the back end of the deal chain cannot cope with the number of deals that have been transacted, then the whole system will grind to a halt
,” said Stuart Riley, Global Head of IT for CitiFX

“The number of tickets generated is at levels that were almost unimaginable just two years ago. We’ve had to plan very carefully and ensure that our systems are scalable to cope with these demands. That is a serious challenge for most institutions,” he added.

It may be recalled here that Citi implemented Quantum FX last year. Quantum FX is Foreign Exchange Back Office system using in-memory data processing spread across parallel servers built using open source Java components running on Linux and on a high performance framework reused from equities front office.

Quantum FX got the following award and recognition in Banking Technology Awards 2012 in Dec 2012. It was published in Banking Technology magazine Jan/Feb 2013 issue.
1. Citi won in The Judged category Best use of Technology in Investment Banking
2. Polaris Financial Technology was Highly Commended in the The Readers Choice Category Best Post Trade Processing Product or Service

CitiFX Wire, the bank’s in-house news and information service, also enjoyed a record day in terms of articles read. “We have a constant flow of information being published in real time from our staff around the world. Clients are increasingly reading this to help with their trading decisions, and also to find out why the markets are moving. There is a clear correlation between market activity and the number of hits we see on CitiFX Wire content,” said Riley.

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10
May
FX market barometer 2012

Last night Euromoney announced its 2012 FX Survey results ( which is one of the FX markets/industry barometers).

Deustche Bank retained its top position title while it’s market share reduced. Citi leapfrogged from 4th position to 2nd narrowing gaining additional market share and marching ahead on its goal of becoming numero 1.

Top 10 banks, (same banks as 2011), continue to dominate the market, accounting for 78.76% of the global FX pie, up from 77.36% in 2011. Top 5 banks account for well over 50%.

FXall was named the Best Independent Multibank Platform for 11th consecutive year but it’s marketshare declined from 28.6% to 21.7 %. FX Connect (owned by State Street) jumped from 4th to 2nd position in multi dealer platform category increasing its marketshare from 10.8% to 18.7%

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27
Jun
FX industry wide initiative to reduce risks with Algo & HFT

Foreign Exchange (Forex or FX) industry launches initiative to reduce risks associated with algorithmic and high-frequency trading (HFT). Allows prime brokers to monitor trading activity and credit limits in real-time. Industry keen to act pre-emptively, to learn from May 2010 equity flash crash. Banks and currency trading platforms have joined forces to reduce the risk that computer model-driven high-frequency traders could spark a flash crash in the FX markets

Traiana (owned by ICAP) has partnered with leading FX prime brokers, Citi, Deutsche Bank, J.P. Morgan and Morgan Stanley, together with leading FX platforms, Bloomberg Tradebook, Currenex, EBS, FXCM , Hotspot FX and Thomson Reuters, to launch an industry-wide initiative to centrally monitor and manage foreign exchange (FX) ECN trading activity and trading limits globally. By connecting prime brokers and ECNs in real-time, the service will provide the FX industry with the control and real-time risk management capabilities to manage risks from algorithmic and high frequency trading. The launch of the new version of Harmony CreditLink culminates a comprehensive effort by all partners over many months, and is now live and available to all Harmony members.

The increase in high frequency trading (HFT) and algorithmic FX trading has made the provision of adequate controls and real-time risk capability critically important to prime brokers managing risk across clients trading on ECNs. Using Harmony CreditLink, prime brokers now have the ability to monitor their clients’ credit risk across multiple ECNs on a real-time basis, act on exceptions in a single integrated dashboard, and open, change or close credit lines to manage risk while maximizing clients’ trading ability. With real-time integration to ECN credit and post-trade APIs, Harmony will proactively notify the Prime Broker of limit breaches and allow the prime broker to modify credit lines or terminate trading activity with an integrated KillSwitch capability. By providing centralized, automated and secure ECN limit management, credit risk for all counterparties will be significantly reduced.

Andrew Coyne, Head of FX Prime & G10 eCommerce, Citi, said: “This collaborative industry initiative addresses a fundamental and immediate industry need – that of providing trading and limit management to prime brokers to enable them to monitor their clients’ credit risk in real-time. Initiated independently of any regulatory call for change, this new solution will fundamentally change the way the FX industry operates going forward.”

Jason Vitale, Global Head of FXPB, Deutsche Bank, said: “The FX industry is leading the way in terms of putting measures in place to significantly reduce risk throughout the post-trade process. Collectively, we have acted to put a solution in place that would provide the level of control and management we felt was necessary to reduce risk. Deutsche Bank is proud to be the first firm live on the new solution and a partner in such a significant evolution of the FX post-trade process.”

Andres Choussy, Global Head of FX Clearing, J.P. Morgan, said: “The cooperation between prime brokers, ECNs and Traiana demonstrates the continued and widespread support within the FX community to ensure proper risk management and control. J.P. Morgan is delighted to be a part of this initiative as we continue to re-design the FX post-trade landscape.”

Michael Irwin, Co-Head of FXPB, Morgan Stanley, said: “The increase in high frequency and algorithmic FX trading has made the provision of adequate control and real-time risk management of critical importance. This collaborative industry partnership marks one of the many ways that major FX prime brokers, ECNs and Traiana are taking the lead to provide high quality risk control, and better client service to the industry.”

Gil Mandelzis, CEO, Traiana, said “Traiana remains committed to innovating across market segments and asset classes to ensure all market participants have the post- trade credit risk solutions they need. We’re honoured to play an instrumental role for the FX community in this initiative, and look forward to expanding central credit risk capabilities to new asset classes.”

Ref : http://www.traiana.com/news/pressreleases/fullstory/?id=70

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