E-trading takes hold for FX swaps – sort of

Electronic trading for foreign exchange swaps and forwards is booming. It has also hit a brick wall – several of them, in fact.

The boom is in screen-based trading, with banks variously telling FX Markets that between 60% and 95% of their flows now happen this way. But this is entry level e-trading. Transactions are predominantly arranged via request-for-quote (RFQ) – replicating the steps involved in voice trading – and the lion’s share of the business is still bilateral, concluded over single