FX Platforms – Mar 15 vol: Solid gains across the board

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Paul Blank

The major OTC FX platforms have now reported their March 15 volumes. All the platforms reported strong gains following weak February figures.

Looking in more detail we see the individual platform figures as follows:

EBS $114.5bn/day in Mar, up a healthy +21.7% on Feb, and up +29.5% compared to Mar 14 level of $88.4bn/day.

Reuters Spot: $132bn/day in Mar, up +15.8% on Feb, and up 4.8% compared to the Mar 14 level of $126bn/day.

Reuters Other Products: $270bn/day in Mar, up +12% on Feb, and up +10.1% compared to Mar 14 level of $245bn/day.

Reuters total: $402bn/day in Mar, up +13.2% on Feb, and up +8.3% compared to Mar 14 level of $371bn/day.

HotSpot: $31.6bn/day in Mar, were up +20.2% on Feb, although down -1.6% compared to Mar 14 level of $32.1bn/day. Hotspot FX was recently sold to BATS Global Trading, who have a reputation for low-cost execution, so it will be interesting to see whether they can effectively build volumes by driving down cost of execution.

Fastmatch: $8.2bn/day in Mar, showing a large +42.6% gain on Feb, and a whopping +94.5% up compared to Mar 14 level of $4.2bn/day. FXCM which owns 30% of Fastmatch, is in the process of disposing of the stake as they divest of non-core assets.

From the charts below, it looks like Reuters and EBS are pretty much moving in step change with each other.

Reuters, EBS and Hotspot FX volumes Mar 2015

However, when we look at the difference between Reuters and EBS, we can see from the chart below that Reuters spot volumes have strongly outpaced EBS since Nov 14. Although it will be interesting to see if the chart can break back above the light blue downtrend line. A failure to do so, should see EBS volumes gain ground at the expense of Reuters.

Chart showing gap between Reuters – EBS

Although Fastmatch volumes are small compared to the other major platforms, they have shown strong growth and with FXCM divesting their 30% stake and a batch of new innovative product offerings being rolled out, it looks like Fastmatch could be due for further volume increases as it continues to gains traction.