Section Two – e-FX Initiatives

Delivering judgement on single dealer platforms is a relatively straightforward process, thanks to them largely offering the same range of products with the added twist of bells and whistles where the bank really thinks it can make a difference. The vendor world is very different. Here, the nuances across products can be myriad, largely because so many technology providers start out solving one or a at best a few, problems. Where the SDP is very much the department store, often the vendor world is the local specialist – yes there is competition, and it’s fierce, but it’s not as obvious where the differentiators are.

There is also the question of stickiness, vendors often build critical functionality that embeds deep into a client’s infrastructure, making it hard to change – and equally hard for clients to really state how great (or otherwise perhaps!) they think a product is compared to its peers.

This is why our e-FX Initiative Awards are very much product-specific. Without the basis to compare, as we noted earlier, apples with apples, we feel a better approach is to highlight interesting initiatives that are likely, but not always guaranteed, to move the industry forward. Sometimes the products we are highlighting solve a problem for the firm itself, but even there, we see the opportunity for replication elsewhere in the industry, or just plain and simple increased take up by said industry.

This approach helps narrow the field down considerably, thanks also to the fact we are only looking at the last 18 months, and also retains our ethos of not wanting to give everyone an award, rather have them, hopefully, mean something. There are other excellent product initiatives out there, more importantly there are some great platforms, products and services out there that have been in operation for a decade or two (or more!), by focusing in on what is genuinely new, hopefully we can if not shine a light on the path forward, at least point you in the right direction.

Here, therefore, are six awards for firms that we think are, in their own different ways, both forward thinking and providing choice for FX market participants.