But because he needs to trade currencies on average between 10 and 20 times a month, he finds the problem with Currenex is that not enough people use the system. If more companies used the system, we would see more banks quoting, he says. Although Currenex is younger than FX Connect, it was the first system to offer users simultaneous access to multiple banks. The site was founded in June 1999 in Menlo Park, California and Currenex also has offices in London and New York. According to our poll, Currenex is the easiest system to use and offers the best price discovery.
Users are also the most loyal, giving the platform top marks overall.
They particularly like the reverse auction process by which they can request simultaneous quotes from several banks. Once their request goes out on the wires, banks have 25 seconds to respond. The offers are presented simultaneously to users, who then have five seconds in which to decide which, if any quotes, to accept. Outside the spot markets, forex options and derivatives are also set for rapid expansion. The online trading platform was originally conceived by Deutsche Bank and backed by Citibank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS Warburg.