Best retail FX platform: OCBC Bank

OCBC Bank’s stability, product array and vast regional presence secure the award for Best retail FX platform

As one of the world’s most highly rated banks – long-term Aa1 by Moody’s and AA by both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch – OCBC Bank is consistently regarded as one of the world’s safest. That was a crucial consideration for clients over the past year, which saw FX volatility spike on recurring outbreaks of Covid-19, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ongoing fears over rising global inflation and interest rates.

This bedrock of stability has allowed OCBC Bank to expand its operations across more than 420 branches and representative offices in 19 countries and regions to become the second-largest financial services group in Southeast Asia by assets. It is against this dynamic backdrop that OCBC Bank has also established itself as a dominant FX market-maker in the region with its retail FX platform, FX Online.

FX Online differentiates itself from the competition through its unique combination of client focus, wide product array and its seamless integration within the wider ecosystem that OCBC’s highly expansive and developed infrastructure brings. Regular client engagements and the system’s agile-centric build approaches have enabled OCBC Bank to launch new FX products and features quickly and seamlessly on FX Online over the past 12 months. It has also enabled the bank to refine the platform workflows to smooth out the user experiences of its diverse client base.

One feature of FX Online that has drawn extremely favourable feedback from the bank’s clients is the ability to simultaneously enjoy both livestreaming FX prices and the flexibility to check FX rates for their preferred settlement date. This is built upon the equally favourably regarded FX pricing engine that lies at the heart of FX Online, which provides optimal FX pricing and execution.

Even with all of these advances in its FX Online retail platform over the past year, OCBC Bank remains highly committed to continual improvement and the optimisation of every feature of its online FX offering, all of which are underpinned by a commitment to deliver transparent and competitive FX prices to its clients. As it now stands, FX Online allows clients to book FX spot, forward and time option forward trades digitally, and offers 24-hour livestreaming, customised FX pricing and execution for more than 90 currency pairs.

OCBC Bank was one of the first banks in Singapore to offer the FX time option forward product on a retail FX platform, and clients can now also access livestreaming FX time option forward pricing and execution capabilities throughout the day.

FX Online is fully integrated into OCBC Bank’s multiple digital channels, such as the OCBC Digital mobile application, available on iOS and Android, and its Personal Internet Banking product. Integration within the wider OCBC Bank ecosystem allows its clients the mobility and convenience of being able to fulfil their end-to-end needs – from price discovery to settlement to overseas payments – within the OCBC ecosystem without having to manage processes across multiple service providers or performing third-party fund transfers.

Although the FX retail platform space is stacked with product offerings, OCBC Bank highlights that many of these platforms are designed to target specific profiles of clients, while others are focused on the richness of the platform’s features or on offering a wide suite of FX and non-FX products. Other platforms prioritise a user-friendly interface to capture a broader client base. OCBC Bank’s FX Online retail platform, however, has organically evolved into an all-encompassing FX platform that not only offers a comprehensive breadth of products and features desired by market participants, but also offers end-to-end value-added services through integration with OCBC Bank’s digital channels and the bank’s ecosystem.

On top of the round-the-clock, multi-jurisdictional, multiproduct features of FX Online, OCBC Bank enables clients of all segment types to access continuous FX liquidity to conveniently hedge their FX risk and to meet their funding needs.

At the same time, OCBC Bank provides clients with the ability to access FX charts and to set up FX rate alerts via push notifications to stay abreast of market movements. OCBC Bank’s more sophisticated and technologically savvy clients are also able to use the bank’s FX application programming interface (API) solution to facilitate direct integration to the bank’s FX Pricing Engine for quick, automated execution.

Similarly, the bank’s FX APIs support 24/7 pricing and execution across all offered currency pairs, as well as request-for-streaming and request-for-quote pricing modes. OCBC Bank’s API solution is also fully integrated across the OCBC ecosystem to satisfy clients looking for both FX execution and overseas transfers via APIs.

“FX Online is truly a one-stop FX platform, from serving sophisticated API clients looking to capitalise on market opportunities, to clients monitoring the markets 24/7 looking to hedge FX risks at their convenience anytime and anywhere, and to serving the broader client segments simply looking for ease of FX execution,” concludes Gerard Tan, managing director, head of digital strategy and marketing, global treasury at OCBC Bank.

 

OCBC Bank was named Best retail FX platform at the 2022 FX Markets Asia FX Awards.

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