The night before, the company’s PR sent out an email stressing that everything was to be treated as off-the-record. What with London’s weather at its finest, I was ready to let rip when I turned up soaking wet as well. Off-the-record briefings have their purpose, but on this occasion it looked a little bit uptight.
To my surprise, the meeting was useful, informative and quite good fun. Phil Weisberg, the company’s chief executive, and Mark Warms, its European general manager, were both in fine form. Although they were obviously there to tout the merits of their platforms, they managed to give the impression of being thought leaders in the industry. They touched on many topics, including the increased use of algos, the problems around sourcing reference data and the likelihood of platform consolidation.
The data issues may be the most important – at least in the near term – and could prove one of FXall’s trump cards. The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) in Europe takes effect in November, and despite what many people might seem to think, FX is not entirely exempt. Without getting bogged down in the endless debate of what constitutes best execution, clearly price plays an important role and the level a currency is trading at will need to be proved at various points along the deal chain.