Barclays Stockbrokers, a division of Barclays Wealth, has announced that its FX platform aimed at private investors has gone live following some extensive beta testing. The WeeklyFiX first reported Barclays’ plans last November. Since then the unit has conducted extensive market research to gauge the appetite for a margined FX service. It says that more than a quarter of investors (26%) surveyed are looking to trade FX in the future, with 16% already trading. The company, which claims to be the most active retail stockbroker in the UK, has declined to say how many clients it has; however, it is believed that the total is in excess of 400,000. Around 25% of these are deemed active, which suggests it has a lot of potential to attract some very significant flow.
The technology behind the retail version of the Barx platform has been provided by Integral. Liquidity in an initial 20 currency pairs will be streamed from Barclays Capital. Barclays says that other white-labelling deals are very much a possibility.
“FX spot trading has moved from the exclusive domain of the institutional trading desk to the active trader’s laptop in line with the increased sophistication of the private client community.