The platform, which went live at the start of August seven months after launching, provides an FX aggregation service across a range of banks to clients for the purpose of executing spot FX trades. The addition of Morgan Stanley means that seven of the top-15 banks in this year’s Euromoney FX survey are now connected to FXSpotStream and will serve as liquidity providers. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Commerzbank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and JPMorgan were all already connected to the network.
FXSpotStream aims to attract business away from other brokerage-charging platforms, such as FXall, 360T, FX Connect and Hotspot by not charging brokerage fees to either clients or liquidity-providing banks. It is a subsidiary of LiquidityMatch, in which the majority of the participant liquidity-providing banks are shareholders.
FXSpotStream has been pitched as a market utility, providing the infrastructure that facilitates the multi-bank API and the associated mechanism to route trades from clients to liquidity providers. Access is via its three co-location sites in New York, London and Tokyo, and they are all up and running.
Alan Schwarz, CEO of FXSpotStream, says he is pleased with the firm’s development.
“We welcome Morgan Stanley as one of seven leading liquidity-providing banks to FXSpotStream and look forward to expanding the service with the addition of more liquidity-providing banks,” he says.
Following FXSpotStream, a host of ECNs launched in the early part of the summer, including Tradition’s traFXpure, FXCM and Credit Suisse’s FastMatch, and Molten Markets, which was set up by one of the architects of State Street’s FX Connect.
Other ECNs to launch include Cürex FX, smartTrade Technologies’ LiquidityFX, Jiffix Markets’ JFX.com and tpSpotdeal, by Tullett Prebon.