Best FX Swaps Platform – UBS

Our first mention of UBS in the Full FX Awards means we should provide an overview of what has been happening at the bank, for it remains one of the top providers in the SDP space thanks to the vision of Neo from all those years ago.

As was the case elsewhere, UBS has spent some resources on enhancing performance and resiliency, something that paid off during the market mayhem of April no doubt. Equally, the bank has been further embedding Neo into its business – again fulfilling one of the early visions for the platform as the infrastructure for the bank beyond just markets, in areas such as wealth management. Indeed, Neo still retains the feel that as well as being great for FX professionals, it is probably the easiest platform to pick up for those that only occasionally touch the FX market.

In terms of look and feel, the one thing that stands out on the current Neo is the increased use of colour – it’s not overdone, but it is definitely there, which is to the benefit of users, targeted as it is, at performance and data offerings. Away from that, perhaps the big change is something taken from Credit Suisse – streaming in much larger amounts than previously. Clearly UBS saw benefit in the CS idea of streaming, for certain clients, up to EUR 500 million in EUR/USD, because it has adopted it for itself. This also required the work UBS was undergoing a couple of years ago to enhance its pricing and risk management tech stack – something that has been done.

As is the case elsewhere, UBS has done a tremendous amount of work building analytics tools and services – and this again highlights the tremendous foundation that Neo provides, for this, along with the use of more colour, has allowed UBS to deliver a rich experience for users trying to pick apart FX market activity.

Traditional strength remains in FX options, which has been enhanced by better integration of market data and analytics to the execution page; as well as in algos, where routing has been enhanced to interact more – where possible – with the bank’s skews. Although Neo is still one of the best platforms around, and weas challenging in every category of these awards, however, it stands out from the pack in FX swaps and its STIR offering.

In FX swaps, the graphics around the run have been improved to provide more clarity, as have the pricing capabilities across the board. As well as the expected configurable nature of the swap run, the bank now delivers axes to defined clients based upon historical analysis or relationship management guidance alongside its streaming swaps prices – something that sets the SDP apart compared to the MDP..

On top of this, the bank has fully rolled out its STIR analytics product, a pretty unique offering built by a quant trader for the STIR trading desk – something that generally means a product will actually be used. It aims to break down a price into its component parts to assist traders with the timing of their execution and identify existing trends in the market, as well as to predict price action around market events.

The available data is very granular, and updated by UBS’ traders globally marking the curve. This effectively means live data for users of Neo in STIR markets, it also includes hard-to-get data, such as with the impact of month- or quarter-ends and without.

UBS is that confident in its STIR analytics, rightly it should be said, that it has also released a premium package, for targeted clients, which hones in on managing roll times by date, roll tenors and even time of day.

The level of granularity and the depth of data involved is tremendous – another benefit of the Neo ‘canister’. A heatmap is provided and can be fuelled by currency, by real-time or look back, one click on a tenor in a pair feeds a graph below that provides details of historical performance.

OIS analytics are also part of the package, showing the ‘priced in’ component ahead of central bank meetings, a panel also shows relative value for single or multiple currencies across the curve.

FX swaps remains an area where the single dealer platforms have a significant advantage, if they can deliver analytics to match the depth of liquidity on offer. UBS does this is spades, with a superb analytics package that is, quite frankly, good enough to satisfy the pickiest option trader.