The derivatives industry is lobbying policymakers to abandon dual-sided trade reporting, align European and US swaps rules, and ease the European Market Infrastructure Regulation’s (EMIR) burden on end-users.

Swap execution facility (SEF) regulations, intended to increase transparency and reduce swap market risk, have been reported to impact market makers’ margins and liquidity, creating wider spreads for end-users. Here, Euromoney follows the CFTC’s SEF regulation timeline, presents market participants’ concerns, and reports on opportunities for doing business.

Investment managers are not only bullish about their ability to manage FX volatility in their portfolios no matter what the market throws at them – they continue to see it as an opportunity to generate additional returns.

Euromoney's latest coverage of the currency.

Statements of commitment are gradually appearing, but many banks are still analyzing the provisions of the code against their own businesses before declaring adherence publicly.

CME Group delivers a blow to last look by revealing its plans for spot FX basis spreads, just weeks before the launch of its OTC FX options clearing service.

FX brokers are expected to leverage bank APIs to speed up client registration under the revised Payment Services Directive, despite the associated regulatory requirements.

CLS is looking to move beyond its image as an FX market utility offering settlement plus a few extras, reorganizing itself into three distinct units – of which settlement is one – with new products announced for each.

Volumes on TradingScreen’s newly spun-off FX platform have already doubled in size, even as parts of the market have contracted over the same time.

A more flexible approach to software development is helping FX market participants test new products and bring them to market more quickly.

Volatility in FX and beyond remains straitjacketed by central bank policy, but many fund managers that rely on volatility-based measures of risk might be dramatically underestimating the level of risk they are taking.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is becoming more bullish about its regulatory sandbox, reiterating that the application of strict rules and the nurturing of innovative products and services are not mutually exclusive.

Many traders are pushing their non-deliverable forward (NDF) trades through clearing houses to increase capital efficiency – with LCH seeing a record-breaking number in August – and R5FX hopes to push this to the next level.

A growing number of FX traders are extolling the virtues of combining quantitative and fundamental analyses into an approach known as quantamental.

The latest review of last look prompted by the FX global code has set off further debate over the use of holding windows and latency buffers.

As Singapore reinforces its position as the leading FX trading centre in the Asia Pacific region, Euromoney looks at the prospects for other regional hubs.

While Aesop was undoubtedly not thinking about currency markets when he wrote the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, low latency FX traders are increasingly realizing that speed does not necessarily equate to success.

The foreign exchange market has long been dominated by a select group of large banks, but Euromoney’s inaugural five-star FX rankings show a different set of banks may be providing the best client service.

Despite advances in data analytics technology, foreign-exchange trade audits remain a complex process requiring access to a wide spread of information on the client as well as the market.

Deutsche Bank research into the use of aggregation for FX spot execution concludes that quality is better than quantity when it comes to working with liquidity providers.

FX industry utilities have been described as a mechanism for substantially reducing post-trade costs, but while market participants are interested in the potential efficiencies they offer, enthusiasm for implementing such solutions remains patchy.

BNP Paribas (BNPP) is the latest bank to be fined by US regulators over misconduct in its FX business. The French bank now hopes to put the episode behind it, having restructured the relevant businesses and improved its compliance processes.

The past few years have seen CLS beef up its offerings in operational risk management well beyond its core settlement business, with services such as netting and compression; the expansion of its aggregation service to emerging market (EM) FX is the latest string to its bow.

The man behind the company with plans to dominate Singapore’s high-volume user market in FX tells Euromoney how a higher percentage of local and regional liquidity can be kept within the island city state.

Despite the progress of other projects applying blockchain technology to FX, Cobalt’s CEO remains confident that his post-trade processing network can reach critical mass.

Singapore is steadily fending off threats to its position as Asia’s largest FX trading centre, threats that include liquidity concerns, growing volumes in Hong Kong and the rise of Shanghai.

Banks consistently offer more competitive prices in spot FX than their ECN counterparts — for all but a few minutes per day — according to research conducted by Pragma, a provider of algorithmic trading technology.

Euromoney's latest coverage of the CHF since the Swiss National Bank removed its currency floor with the euro, plus choice archive material.

The latest venture of one of the co-founders of market infrastructure technology firm Traiana aims to boost the confidence of banks and buyside firms in financial technology by simplifying the process of managing risk across multiple vendor and systems.

FX white label providers are keen to stress the flexibility of their offerings as clients increasingly demand à la carte solutions and the ability to add or remove liquidity providers and distribution partners.