EBS, ICAP’s electronic foreign exchange business, announced it will launch trading in FX outrights and swaps on its EBS Direct system later this year.
Subject to regulatory approvals, order routing and execution will begin sometime in the fourth quarter of this year. Seamus O’Sullivan, global head of FX forwards, EBS Direct, who joined EBS in February 2015, is leading this initiative.
So far, eight liquidity providers have committed to supporting the system during its initial beta launch, including Credit Suisse and Standard Chartered.
According to EBS, it has already received “significant” interest from customers with a plan for 30 liquidity consumers to participate in the beta launch globally, ten LC’s per region.
The launch of FX Outright & Swaps will support Request for Stream (RFS), a new addition to EBS’s execution functionality. The introduction of Outrights and Swaps, along with RFS on the EBS Direct platform will help customers to also trade other instruments as they become available.
“FX outrights and swaps are a very significant part of the market in which EBS has never participated,” said Gil Mandelzis, chief executive of EBS-BrokerTec. “This launch is an exciting and material addition for EBS – now a multi-product FX service provider – and the latest introduction of many new initiatives and services that we will launch in 2015 and 2016.”
EBS Direct customers will be able to access FX Outrights and Swaps through EBS’s HTML5-based integrated trading platform. This new EBS platform, due to launch in Q3 2015, will provide customers with a fully integrated view of EBS’s products and services, new analytics and access to its trusted liquidity, all in a single, fully customizable screen.
