When Citi took the bold step of cutting 90% of its ties with a range of spot foreign exchange vendors in 2020, many expected this would lead to an industry-wide culling of platforms by the banks.
Historically, dealers have been willing to connect to any platform that has some client demand, but this is largely out of reluctance. The build-up of brokerage fees charged by these venues, as well as the cost of connecting to the myriad services, has led to a hard pushback from some banks as they try to convince buy-side clients to trade on fewer platforms – or their own single-dealer platforms – instead.
Furthermore, many believed that after years of fragmented liquidity caused by so many spot trading venues, there would ultimately be a consolidation of the platforms.
But rather than seeing FX vendors…
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