The company says it is, “committed to maintaining an efficient, effective and orderly EBS trading experience in all market conditions for all market participants.”
The change that seems to be causing the most buzz is to its minimum quote lifespan (MQL). This was rolled out on June 15. Icap says it, “ensures all quotes will remain active in the market for a minimum period of time. This MQL parameter will be enabled and set to 250ms in EBS’ five major pairs (EUR/USD, USD/JPY, EUR/JPY, USD/CHF and EUR/CHF).”
Talking to an admittedly small sample, it seems that some banks still think that EBS’ architecture leaves it vulnerable to aggressive predators. However, there is some feeling that EBS is suffering from trying to run a market that has the same rules for all. My view is that if you don’t want to get picked off, don’t put a price on the platform if it is that bad.
EBS seems to be being punished for trying to run a level playing field – it’s no secret that banks can decline to deal with the more aggressive operators on other platforms, even if they are hiding behind a prime broker
For the moment, the platform propaganda is that EBS is seeing a reduction in flow from some of the so-called prop shops.