Foreign Exchange

After performing through some volatile years, corporate currency-risk managers earn growing respect.

The foreign exchange industry is embracing principles to nourish a robust, fair and transparent market for currency trading—without threat of law.

At Global Finance magazine’s annual foreign-exchange awards event, industry stars reflected on the regulatory impacts and technological advances that are changing the market.

Global Finance publishes its annual list of the top foreign exchange providers in the world. 

The $5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market is changing rapidly, as electronic execution platforms control the bulk of trading and bank dealers streamline operations in response to growing pressure from regulators to cut trading risks and boost capital. 

Q+A
David Newns, global head of State Street’s Currenex, says the diversity and liquidity provided by ECN (electronic communications networks) trading are keenly important to banks.
 

Profiles of the 2016 FX Award Winners by Region and Category

Criteria for choosing the winners included transaction volume, market share, scope of global coverage, customer service, competitive pricing and innovative technologies. Global Finance also considered input from a panel of experts and feedback from industry analysts, corporate executives and technology specialists.

Q+A
Marc Zaffran, head of FX sales at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking, says clients are looking more closely at how and why they hedge.

Q+A
Michael Curran, head of foreign exchange, BNY Mellon Markets Group, sees blockchain technology as the FX market’s key innovation.
 

Global Finance’s annual list of Who’s who in Foreign Exchange.     

Innovation is bringing transparency and diversity to the FX market.

Global Finance’s Who’s Who in International Foreign Exchange will span the globe for the most important, influential, creative and powerful people in foreign exchange - those who are leading the way to the future at companies, investors, banks and technology providers.

Eddie Listorti, co-global head of fixed income, currencies and commodities at ANZ Group in Singapore, sees intra-Asian currency flows as a lucrative opportunity.

Mikhail Palei, head of foreign exchange flow at VTB Capital in Moscow, expects international banks to lose their appetite for risk in the Russian ruble—which he sees as an opportunity for Russia’s FX desks.

Antti Ranta, head of FX at Nordea in Helsinki, sees demand growing for emerging markets currencies in Nordic countries—and for advice on how to trade them.

Regulatory uncertainty, technological change and traders behaving badly have collided in a perfect storm for banks’ foreign exchange operations

Philip Nel, head of FX trading for Africa at Standard Bank in Johannesburg, anticipates a proliferation of new foreign exchange products in countries across the continent.

ANNUAL SURVEY — STABILITY AMID CHANGE   By Gordon Platt   A global investigation into trading irregularities has not hampered growth or innovation in one of the world’s largest and most volatile markets—foreign exchange.   The $5.3 trillion-a-day foreign exchange ...

BRIGHT STARS   By Thomas Clouse, Jonathan Gregson, Antonio Guerrero & Gordon Platt   Following a year that included some of the biggest scandals in banking history—the London Whale, the Libor rate-fixing scandal, widespread money laundering, insider trading, rogue trading and ...