London’s Mandarin Oriental played host on Thursday to the second successful Euromoney Foreign Exchange Awards, with more than 200 of the industry’s most senior leaders and practitioners gathering for an exceptional evening to celebrate, recognise and reward the highest achievements across the FX market during the past year.

Murex's 2024 FX options strategy focused on meeting the trading needs of all FX options desks – from regional institutions to leading global banks. Its key achievements include scaling up real-time portfolio management, expanding its new stochastic local volatility (SLV) model, and supporting digital transformation through new application programming interfaces (API).

State Street is a global powerhouse in FX and has positioned its research as a key differentiator in its market-leading sales offering. Over the review period, the bank introduced new measures for monitoring political risk and improved its capturing of changes in investor and central bank behaviour.

TD Securities has implemented comprehensive global and regional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategies across the business, with the FX team ensuring that it also has a targeted approach.

UBS expanded its FX sales capabilities by leveraging cutting-edge tools and platforms to enhance operational efficiency and client engagement.

UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse boosted its capabilities in the Swiss FX market. Already a dominant player in Switzerland, the deal allowed the bank to offer a comprehensive range of FX services to a larger, more diverse client base. It also enabled it to deepen its expertise, particularly in the Swiss franc market, where client demand for specialized insights is growing.

TD Bank Group’s (TD) global presence includes TD Securities (TDS), which has strong wholesale relationships with pension funds, asset managers, insurers and corporates, along with a strong retail and wealth FX business, and consistently ranks number one or two in market share for Canada. TDS’s e-FX team has made significant strides in enhancing the bank's data and analytics capabilities in Canada, especially in the area of market microstructure.

NatWest Markets (NWM) treats its FX Prime Brokerage (FXPB) business as a distinct growth focus as opposed to an ancillary service, with significant investment in the business to ensure it can provide high-touch, high-service offerings. Combining the freedom of having a proprietary platform with an appetite for developing client solutions has resulted in a suite of solutions that are used for different client types. While most FXPB banks use the market standard FXPB agreement, NWM has developed six distinct FXPB models. These models can be combined to address a broad selection of client types ranging from prop traders through to agency brokers and FX platforms.

During the review period, Barclays’ focus in the FX algo space has been on enhancing its client experience by improving overall algo performance and increasing platform flexibility to facilitate targeted algo customization. This client-centric approach resulted in the further broadening and refinement of its BARX Gator algo suite. Added to this, Barclays’ established franchise, adaptability and deep infrastructure interconnectivity contribute to the current reputation and standing in the market of the algo offering. The bank’s global teams, quants, and dedicated resources ensure continuous optimization and deliver top-tier, tailored solutions to its clients.

Since its launch in 2014, Bank of America’s (BofA) transactional FX business has quickly risen to become one of the top three global players. This success reflects the bank's strategic vision, innovative products and global reach, enabling it to secure a strong market position and stand out in the competitive FX industry.

NatWest Markets (NWM) is a UK franchise offering a leading range of FX services to both its local and global client bases.

The low volatility conditions observed in FX markets over the past year have posed challenges, with market makers facing spread compression and reduced turnover. Despite these obstacles, JPMorgan has maintained a high level of performance. The firm has consistently ranked highly across multi-dealer channels. Additionally, JPMorgan continued to expand its dominance in the FX options market, further solidifying its reputation as a top player in the space.

TD Securities (TDS) places client services at the heart of its FX data management strategy. The bank aims to provide a personalized, comprehensive service, transforming client data into actionable insights that enhance its FX offerings. By leveraging advanced forecasting models, trading signals and FX portfolios, it aims to empower clients with the strategies needed to navigate the complexities of the global FX market.

In just five years, FX HedgePool has swiftly transformed from a single-product provider to a multi-service platform, serving over 40 major financial institutions worldwide. This growth is driven by a robust emphasis on research and development, with two major product releases each month that keep its offerings aligned with the evolving market demands.

By April 2023, CME Group had become the largest centralized FX venue globally, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). BIS data shows that more volume is now traded in CME Group FX futures than on the two primary OTC spot markets combined. The group also recently realigned its FX futures, options and EBS cash markets business to create a single FX business, in a bid to further boost client service, increase efficiencies and enhance product development across the entire FX marketplace.

Post-trade infrastructure provider OSTTRA had a remarkable year. Its recent efforts to improve integration, control and efficiency have had a tangible impact on its clients and wider market.

LMAX Exchange stood out from competitors thanks to its unique approach and cutting-edge technology. It services a global FX customer base of funds, banks, brokerages, asset managers and proprietary trading firms through the provision of an anonymised, regulated and rules-based trading environment with strict price and time priority order execution at ultra-low latency.

Over the last year, LCH ForexClear has launched initiatives aimed at safeguarding clearing members’ interests and supporting general market and financial stability through its operations.

Banco Santander has seen the expansion and success of its FX business extend into Argentina over the review period. Significant developments include its developing non-deliverable forwards (NDF) currency solutions, enabling clients to trade Latam currencies offshore while maintaining onshore delivery. This expansion is driven by growing trade corridors between Asia and Latam and currency rebalancing trends.

TD Bank Group (TD) offers a comprehensive retail foreign exchange service across North America, providing currency rates, payments, and banknote products around the clock through over 2,000 branches. This includes 14 FX centres in Canada, where customers can access over 50 currencies either by pre-order or on-demand.

CLS has been steadily expanding and refining its services to meet the diverse needs of the foreign exchange industry, with a strong emphasis on reducing settlement risks and boosting operational efficiency.

Over the past 12 months, 4OTC has launched significant initiatives aimed at addressing connectivity issues caused by the fragmented nature of the FX market.

Euronext FX made significant progress to its product offering following the recent establishment of its dedicated product team. Spearheaded by a global head of product, the focus was on ensuring client feedback is promptly addressed and that the platform continues to develop, retaining and expanding its user base.

Banco Popular Dominicano (BPD) is the largest private bank in the Dominican Republic, recognized as a leader in the FX market with a 21% market share of USD/DOP transactions as of May 2024. During the review period, the bank has seen significant growth in FX derivatives, particularly in non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) for the USD/DOP pair, driven by increasing demand from its clients seeking to hedge their FX positions. BPD offers both NDFs and full-delivery forwards of up to 180 days in USD/DOP and EUR/USD, catering to large corporate clients, including those in the beverage and manufacturing industries.

A dominant player in the Omani market, Bank Muscat offers comprehensive FX payment solutions to both corporate and individual clients, facilitating remittances and trade-related payments in 29 currencies.

Over the past year, 360T has strategically developed its execution management system (EMS) to better serve FX clients, registering progress on several fronts.

BBVA’s Latin America FX business is an integral part of BBVA’s global FX franchise, representing a large portion of its total FX revenues and FX global front office resources.

SGX FX is the largest Asian FX Futures exchange and has continued to innovate in the Asian FX markets by offering comprehensive solutions tailored to the evolving needs of clients, while driving growth through technological innovation and client engagement.

BBVA has maintained a strong presence in the Peruvian FX market, holding a leading role for the past six years.

Over the past year, Barclays has developed its offering for real-money clients, notably through enhancements to the performance of its online FX trading channel BARX, enhancing spot liquidity and boosting algo flexibility. Using client feedback and behaviour analysis, Barclays also broadened and refined its algo suite, which significantly benefits real-money customers. Barclays offers market-leading insights, especially on UK policy and politics, and maintains tight spreads around economic events. Additionally, Barclays led client discussions on T+1 settlement, reinforcing its role as a key thought partner and strengthening client relationships.