Retail FX benefits as traders go DIY

Speaking on a panel discussing retail FX at last week's FX Week Europe Congress, Davison said: "As less people are employed in financial services than in previous years, more people will feel they can get involved themselves."

The panel agreed one challenge will be to access a growing client base made up of different elements - the man on the street, high-net-worth customers and small companies.

Sarah Stringelin, head of private client FX, global markets, at Deutsche Bank, said this presents particular difficulties for a bank. "We had to work out what retail FX was and if we had any of it already. Our concern was that, in going after it, we didn't want to drop the business somewhere else," she said.

"Our institutional client base is very developed and retail aggregators form a large part of that, while the wealth management group specialises in high-net-worth individuals. It wasn't in our interest to go and bastardise those businesses and grab it for ourselves," she added.

Over the past 18 months, Stringelin said the bank has learned how to fit retail FX around existing offerings without conflicting with the bank's other businesses.

Working out who makes up the retail FX market is key to determining how to access it. Paul Friel, head of international product development at Barclays Wealth, said access is increasingly through the electronic sphere. He said 90% of customers now trade electronically. However, despite this, the voice market still has a role to play, particularly for high-net-worth customers. "When markets turn, clients want to talk to a broker to get a market viewpoint," said Friel. "Offering this means clients are more likely to stick with that broker through those times."

The panel was broadly positive about the future of retail FX but, as the lines continue to blur between the types of customers participating in the market, Paul D'Amario's analogy seemed apt: the managing director of Greenwich Associates said retail FX is like pornography. "I can't tell you what it is, but I'll know it when I see it."