 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2008) |
| Industry | financial services |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1990 |
| Successor | CME Group |
| Services | electronic trading platform market-making banks |
Electronic Broking Services (EBS) is a wholesale electronic trading platform used to trade on the foreign exchange market (FX) with market-making banks. It was originally created as a partnership by large banks and then became part of CME Group. [1]
EBS was created by a partnership of large foreign exchange (FX) market making banks in 1990 to challenge Reuters' threatened monopoly in interbank spot foreign exchange and provide effective competition.[ citation needed ] By 2007, approximately US$164 billion in spot foreign exchange transactions were traded every day over EBS's central limit order book, EBS Market.[ citation needed ]
EBS's closest competitor is Refinitiv FXall. The decision by an FX trader whether to use EBS or FXall is driven largely by currency pair. In practice, EBS is the primary trading venue for EUR/USD, USD/JPY, EUR/JPY, USD/CHF, EUR/CHF and USD/CNH, and FXall is the primary trading venue for commonwealth (AUD/USD, NZD/USD, USD/CAD) and emerging market currency pairs.[ citation needed ]
EBS initiated e-trading in spot precious metals, spanning spot gold, silver, platinum and palladium, and remains the leading electronic broker in spot gold and silver through the Loco London Market.[ citation needed ]
They were the first organisation to facilitate orderly black box or algorithmic trading in spot FX, through an application programming interface (API). By 2007 this accounted for 60% of all EBS flow.[ citation needed ]
In addition to spot FX and Precious Metals, EBS has expanded trading products through its venues to include NDFs, forwards and FX options. It has also increased the range of trading style to include RFQ and streaming in disclosed and non-disclosed environments.[ citation needed ]
EBS was acquired by ICAP, the world's largest inter-dealer broker, in June 2006. [2]
In 2014, EBS merged with BrokerTec—a service provider in the fixed income markets—to form EBS BrokerTec. BrokerTec offers trading technology for many US and European fixed income products including US Treasuries, European Government Bonds and European Repo. [3] [4]
In 2017, EBS BrokerTec was renamed to NEX Markets and the name EBS BrokerTec ceased to exist. The names of the trading platforms, EBS and BrokerTec, remained. [5]
In 2018, NEX Markets was acquired by CME Group. [6]
Products of the company include:
ISO 4217 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that defines alpha codes and numeric codes for the representation of currencies and provides information about the relationships between individual currencies and their minor units. This data is published in three tables:
The foreign exchange market is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all aspects of buying, selling and exchanging currencies at current or determined prices. In terms of trading volume, it is by far the largest market in the world, followed by the credit market.
A foreign exchange spot transaction, also known as FX spot, is an agreement between two parties to buy one currency against selling another currency at an agreed price for settlement on the spot date. The exchange rate at which the transaction is done is called the spot exchange rate. As of 2010, the average daily turnover of global FX spot transactions reached nearly US$1.5 trillion, counting 37.4% of all foreign exchange transactions. FX spot transactions increased by 38% to US$2.0 trillion from April 2010 to April 2013.
A currency future, also known as an FX future or a foreign exchange future, is a futures contract to exchange one currency for another at a specified date in the future at a price that is fixed on the purchase date; see Foreign exchange derivative. Typically, one of the currencies is the US dollar. The price of a future is then in terms of US dollars per unit of other currency. This can be different from the standard way of quoting in the spot foreign exchange markets. The trade unit of each contract is then a certain amount of other currency, for instance €125,000. Most contracts have physical delivery, so for those held at the end of the last trading day, actual payments are made in each currency. However, most contracts are closed out before that. Investors can close out the contract at any time prior to the contract's delivery date.
The bid–ask spread is the difference between the prices quoted for an immediate sale (ask) and an immediate purchase (bid) for stocks, futures contracts, options, or currency pairs in some auction scenario. The size of the bid–ask spread in a security is one measure of the liquidity of the market and of the size of the transaction cost. If the spread is 0 then it is a frictionless asset.
In finance, a foreign exchange option is a derivative financial instrument that gives the right but not the obligation to exchange money denominated in one currency into another currency at a pre-agreed exchange rate on a specified date. See Foreign exchange derivative.
In finance, a non-deliverable forward (NDF) is an outright forward or futures contract in which counterparties settle the difference between the contracted NDF price or rate and the prevailing spot price or rate on an agreed notional amount. It is used in various markets such as foreign exchange and commodities. NDFs are also known as forward contracts for differences (FCD). NDFs are prevalent in some countries where forward FX trading has been banned by the government.
In finance, a currency swap is an interest rate derivative (IRD). In particular it is a linear IRD, and one of the most liquid benchmark products spanning multiple currencies simultaneously. It has pricing associations with interest rate swaps (IRSs), foreign exchange (FX) rates, and FX swaps (FXSs).
A currency pair is the quotation of the relative value of a currency unit against the unit of another currency in the foreign exchange market. The currency that is used as the reference is called the counter currency, quote currency, or currency and the currency that is quoted in relation is called the base currency or transaction currency.
The Asian Clearing Union (ACU) was established on December 9, 1974, at the initiative of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The primary objective of ACU, at the time of its establishment, was to secure regional co-operation regarding the clearing of eligible monetary transactions among the members of the Union to provide a system for clearing payments among the member countries on a multilateral basis.
Michael Alan Spencer, Baron Spencer of Alresford, sometimes known as "Spens", is a British billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder of NEX Group, a UK-based business focused on electronic markets and post-trade business which was acquired by CME Group in November 2018. NEX Group was formerly known as ICAP, until the sale of its voice-broking business to Tullett Prebon in December 2016.
CME Group Inc., headquartered in Chicago, operates financial derivatives exchanges including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Trade, New York Mercantile Exchange, and The Commodity Exchange. The company also owns 27% of S&P Dow Jones Indices. It is the world's largest operator of financial derivatives exchanges. Its exchanges are platforms for trading in agricultural products, currencies, energy, interest rates, metals, futures contracts, options, stock indexes, and cryptocurrencies futures.
NEX Group plc, formerly known as ICAP plc, is a UK-based business focused on electronic financial markets and post trade business for other financial institutions rather than private individuals. They are known as an inter-broker dealer. The company operates BrokerTec and EBS, respectively among the largest treasuries and foreign exchange markets in the world. NEX was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by CME Group in November 2018.
U.S. Futures Exchange (USFE) was a Chicago-based, electronic futures exchange that terminated all exchange operations on December 31, 2008. On December 17, 2008, MF Global had announced USFE was for sale or would be closed by December 31, 2008. USFE was originally Eurex US who bought BrokerTec, but applied and received its own futures exchange license from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In October 2006, Man Group bought a majority share of Eurex US and rebranded the exchange U.S. Futures Exchange. It has been working to release a set of new products under a strategy of bringing innovation to the more than century-old derivatives business. The chief executive officer was John Spiegel.
TP ICAP Group plc is a financial services firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. Its stock is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
The interbank market is the top-level foreign exchange market where banks exchange different currencies. The banks can either deal with one another directly, or through electronic brokering platforms. The Electronic Broking Services (EBS) and Thomson Reuters Dealing are the two competitors in the electronic brokering platform business and together connect over 1000 banks. The currencies of most developed countries have floating exchange rates. These currencies do not have fixed values but, rather, values that fluctuate relative to other currencies.
LCH is a British clearing house group that serves major international exchanges, as well as a range of OTC markets. The LCH Group consists of two subsidiaries: LCH Ltd and LCH SA. Based on 2012 figures, LCH cleared approximately 50% of the global interest rate swap market, and was the second largest clearer of bonds and repos in the world, providing services across 13 government debt markets. In addition, LCH clears a broad range of asset classes including: commodities, securities, exchange traded derivatives, credit default swaps, energy contracts, freight derivatives, interest rate swaps, foreign exchange and Euro and Sterling denominated bonds and repos.
PLUS Markets Group was a UK electronic stock exchange based in London for small cap companies that was acquired by ICAP in 2012 and rebranded as Icap Securities and Derivatives Exchange (ISDX). It was a market operator under MiFID Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, and was both a regulated market and a multilateral trading facility.
Matchbook FX was an internet-based electronic communication network for trading currency online in the Spot-FX or foreign exchange market. It operated between 1999 and 2002.
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