FXCM and CS partner in co-developing a new institutional platform for forex traders. FastMatch ECN utilizes Credit Suisse’s equities matching engine and FXCM’s forex institutional contacts and experience and strives to deliver a technological advantage for forex traders including brokers, banks and prop trading firms. The platform will co-exist with existing FXCM Pro’s platform.
FXCM and Credit Suisse own 40% of FastMatch each.
The deal reminds of OANDA/HSBC deal where HSBC teamed up with OANDA in designing a forex platform for its clients. The deal wasn’t straight white label licensing but rather a technological collaboration utilizing OANDA’s forex market know-how.
FXCM is storming the institutional forex market lately with its institutional forex arm FXCM Pro showing considerable growth over past 2 years. FXCM recently acquired 50% of Lucid Markets, one of world’s largest institutional forex market makers, to further solidify its institutional forex market position in what seems like a major focus shift for this retail forex giant.
NEW YORK, NY, June 19, 2012—FXCM Inc. and Credit Suisse Group AG announced today the upcoming launch of FastMatch. FastMatch is a new Electronic Communication Network (ECN) for foreign exchange trading. FastMatch strives to offer its customers access to large pools of diversified liquidity at unparalleled speed with complete transparency in the optimal location.
“FastMatch will redefine forex trading and take it to the next level,” said Dmitri Galinov, CEO of FastMatch, Inc. “FastMatch will revolutionize forex trading by introducing the speed and transparency of equities trading to a diverse set of clients including retail brokers, institutions, banks, hedge funds, and proprietary trading firms.” FastMatch will create a new standard of trading transparency by disseminating platform’s quotes and trades with sizes and prices in real time.
“FXCM believes that FastMatch brings the functionality needed from a matching system in today’s trading environment, which was currently missing in the forex space,” said Drew Niv, CEO of FXCM. “We stand behind this platform because it has taken technology from the equities markets, which works, and adapted it for the forex market so that our forex clients can benefit.”
The FastMatch ECN is based on the technology underpinning the world’s largest equities crossing system, the Credit Suisse Crossfinder matching engine, re-tooled and tailored to the needs of the global foreign exchange markets. This market-tested technology gives FastMatch an incredible performance and technological advantage with the ability to handle thousands of clients simultaneously.
The system will be rolled out in phases starting in July 2012, with the final release scheduled for September 2012. Each phase will enable new functions and more clients on the system. When completely rolled out, FastMatch will allow clients to trade across an array of unique liquidity sub-pools each governed by its own distinct rules of trading. FastMatch will also enable institutional clients to easily transact large sizes with minimum market impact by using order types like hidden pegged to midpoint, reserve and minimum quantity.
FastMatch’s matching engine is located in the Equinix NY4 facility at 755 Secaucus Road, Secaucus, NJ 07094, USA. Equinix NY4 is a central location for foreign exchange clients.
Another strong move by FXCM. Get the best market makers (Lucid), and then get them on the most platforms and in front of the most order flow. CS has never had a large share of order flow on the traditional platforms; maybe CS has been able to keep their clients on some sort of “in-house” ECN (FastMatch). Now FXCM is able to put the Lucid market makers in front of order flow that Lucid may not have had access to in the past. FXCM = Steamroller.