FXall gains ground in options with three new banks

FXall's options trading capabilities are gaining momentum as the institutional trading platform this week added Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley as liquidity providers, in addition to Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse, both of which were onboard when FXall added options to its platform in July.

FXall, which moved into foreign exchange options later than some rival vendors such as GFI Fenics and Digital Vega, now supports calls, puts, straddles, strangles, spreads, collars, butterflies and strips. One feature that attracted Goldman Sachs to FXall was its request-for-stream model, which allows clients and liquidity providers to see who they are dealing with, according to Tom Robinson, global head of electronic FX sales at Goldman Sachs in London.

"We have spent a lot of time and resources in developing our technology in the FX options space and we continue to invest in e-commerce. We know through this platform who we are dealing with so we see it as a way to enhance a client relationship within the world of electronic trading. This is important to us and is why we chose to go with this platform. We definitely see a future for this part of the market that is worth investing in," says Robinson.

"As the market evolves towards a more electronic means of execution, FXall is a strategic partner in helping to broaden the distribution of our electronic products. We are pleased to offer liquidity through this new trading venue, and welcome the greater choice and improved access to liquidity this will bring," adds Kayhan Mirza, global head of FX options at JP Morgan in London.

FXall was acquired earlier this year by Thomson Reuters, which has previously attempted to take FX options to an electronic platform, but abandoned the effort after it failed to gain traction. According to Phil Weisberg, chief executive of FXall in New York, clients can now benefit from a combination of FXall's options trading capabilities and Thomson Reuters' pre-trade tools.

"Thomson Reuters has got quite a lot of interesting things that FXall clients would be able to use to make their options trading experience better. It has all kinds of pre-trade analytics in its Eikon product; it has a good option time series, volatility surfaces and all sorts of data that could make the job easier for an options trader. Now we have access to some of those tools, we can work together to try to deliver those as part of a joint package to our customers," says Weisberg.