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"We’ve been successful because we built a scalable way to distribute liquidity. We got lucky that it worked and nobody else caught on for a few years" |
Back in the old days when foreign exchange dealing was transacted primarily by telephone, if you asked who the best trader in the market was, you would invariably be told that it was someone at one of the big banks who was running the book in one of the main currencies. There was an element of truth to such views but there was as much chance that the market’s best dealer was hidden away trading a minor currency at a small institution. Looking at today’s market, Deutsche Bank’s Autobahn trading platform is frequently described as setting the benchmark for what an e-commerce offering should provide. But has Autobahn’s reputation been exaggerated because it belongs to Deutsche? After all, Deutsche is easily the market’s biggest sell-side player, with a huge 19.3% market share according to the Euromoney2007 FX poll.
What seems clear is that the success of Deutsche and the reputation of Autobahn are inextricably intertwined.