Electronic Trading Shows Scope for FX Growth in Middle East
September 27, 2016 | By: Matthew Halicki
September 22, 2016
Despite a substantial fall in trading volumes in Bahrain during the past three years and the ability of Saudi Arabia to defend its currency peg, increased electronic trading volumes suggest the Middle East FX market has scope for further development.
FlexTrade’s Vishal Kapadia, Vice President, Business Development for the Middle East and Asia, recently spoke with Euromoney’s Paul Golden about electronic trading trends in the Middle East and how they are affecting FX.
From the article:
Most leading corporates in the Middle East have multiple bank relationships and like to see all FX prices aggregated from different counterparties on a single platform as part of a drive for better execution, agrees Vishal Kapadia, FlexTrade’s vice-president, business development for the Middle East and Asia.
“Most of the big corporates who have multiple banking relationships are getting streaming FX prices over multi-bank portals,” he says. “Banks and brokers also prefer to distribute FX spot liquidity electronically – since vanilla FX transactions are automated, the banks can focus on higher margins on structured products.
“Additionally, these systems are connected to the risk and internal systems of the banks and come with pre- and post-trade analytical tools.”
Kapadia also notes the growth in retail FX, with margin trading and FX brokers providing liquidity electronically over platforms for retail traders.