Best FX Platform – JP Morgan

Plus ça change as our French friends are fond of saying. The last time the editor was involved in awards the standout offering was JP Morgan’s Execute – roll forward nearly five years and it remains thus. The bank has not taken its foot off the gas when it comes to investing, and while a fair bit of work has gone into making it a multi-asset platform, FX has not been left behind.

While these awards are solely focused on FX, abilities in other asset classes should not be ignored, given how they can make a platform attractive to hedge funds and asset managers who still like the idea of a multi-asset class venue, but have yet to find one that really meets their needs. Best execution policies for some firms aside, Execute does meet a lot of their needs.

Ensuring that it adheres to the mantra of not upsetting client workflow, rather enhancing it, the bank has seriously enhanced its pre-trade offering – leveraging the benefits that come from being such a significant presence in the FX markets. This manifests itself in analytics, with the stand out in FX terms being around market volume – both actual and predictive – that can be adapted by the client with a single click to show the parameters in which they are interested. Several users pointed out that too many volume analytics are static, they really like the flexible nature of those on offer on Execute.

All types of traders are catered for in the pre-trade analytics; want net flow data from the biggest house on the street? It’s there. So too is longer-term analysis for real money firms seeking to trade in larger size over duration (widgets or icons also provide high-level explanations of the data). The bank offers analytics on Execute in 11 asset classes as well, to satisfy that growing demand for multi-faceted platforms.

The pre-trade analytics around algo performance are still excellent – and have long been a strength of the bank – while it has more recently added alerts that clients can use for any number of potential triggers. Importantly when it comes to analytics, the GUI is easy on the eye, highlights potential opportunities and risks clearly and is intuitive and interactive.

A particularly useful addition in recent times has been basket orders, which doesn’t sound that exciting as it has been done before, but probably not to the breadth of those available on Execute. Leaning back into the multi-asset aspect of the platform, clients can not only create their own basket of correlated currency pairs (with their own weightings), but they can now build baskets across asset classes, thanks to the bank’s work in fixed income and commodities especially. As the world’s markets become driven even more by technology and systematic traders, the importance of being able to establish multiple positions, across multiple asset classes, with one or two clicks, cannot be understated.

JP Morgan very much sees its platform as the creative engine for the FX business – new ideas start there and are developed on there, that is the true definition of an e-FX operation that is embedded in the wider business

Baskets can be created by JP Morgan teams and sent to the client to upload to the platform, meaning even those clients with fewer technology resources in FX (yes, we are looking at you asset managers!) can create and access their own.

In FX options, the bank has added staging technology, where trades can be uploaded for checking and executing. It has also built a workflow that very much reflects that of the MDPs – a rare case of an idea flowing in that direction rather than the other – using APIs to send trades back to the client. Clients in options can also do unwinds and restructuring trades in the post-trade environment, as well as add allocations and splits, using templates or on a bespoke basis. An interesting idea is the use of QR codes, where approved strategies can be sent to the client in the form of a QR code from where they can launch a ticket.

An FX options lifecycle blotter is now also available on JP Morgan’s mobile app, useful in a world that still has some WFH holdouts (the sharing functionality on options also speaks to this). The mobile offering has also been enhanced to offer more algo functionality, thus making it even more trader-friendly – something that has no doubt been welcomed given market conditions over the past year.

An enhanced JP Morgan Markets (JPMM) platform has also been released, offering a more personalised experience and signifying the broad nature of the bank’s investment in its FX business. If there is a process in the trade lifecycle, JP Morgan has sought to ensure that Execute (and JPMM) incorporates it in a user-friendly fashion. This extends to its work to create a single sign-on for the entire platform – sounds easy, takes a lot of work. Similarly, the blotters have been enhanced – again, an oft-overlooked aspect of a platform, but for many clients an invaluable resource.

Execute remains, therefore, the best in the business, helped, no doubt, by continued competition from its peers – something the bank is keenly aware of. Perhaps one observation explains why the bank manages to stay ahead – several banks see their SDP as a reflection of their FX business, offering superb tools and services in areas in which they are strong.

JP Morgan, on the other hand, very much sees its platform as the creative engine for the FX business – new ideas start there and are developed on there. That is the true definition of an e-FX operation that is embedded in the wider business and highlights why knocking the bank off the top step will be so hard for its challengers.