GFI Launches FENICS Trader For Foreign Exchange Options

GFI Group Inc. announced the launch of FENICS Trader, a single point of access to multi-bank liquidity for foreign exchange options.

This technology facilitates independent FX options price discovery, offering a "many-to-many" venue for bilateral trading and execution.

FENICS Trader is supported by big-name banks including BNP Paribas, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Credit Suisse, UBS and Unicredit Bank AG.

During a 6 month soft launch period, trade volumes grew impressively, rising to over 120 trades per month, the vendor reported. This soft launch involved 20 of GFI FENICS' clients.

FENICS Trader allows clients to calculate indicative prices based on banks' proprietary volatility surfaces. Using "Request for Quote" (RFQ) technology clients receive a tradable price from their preferred liquidity bank. Once the price is agreed, electronic execution is completed on a bi-lateral basis. At present FENICS Trader supports European vanilla and simple two-legged structures. Trades can be priced in volatility or premium terms. FENICS Trader is available to clients via the FENICS Professional(TM) platform.

Richard Brunt, Global Head of GFI FENICS stated: "This is a very important step forward for GFI FENICS and for the FX options dealing community. FENICS Trader is the first many-to-many FX options execution platform, and the initial volumes have been hugely encouraging showing that this initiative is well supported by the market and valued by GFI FENICS' client base, and is particularly relevant in light of the regulatory environment."

Brunt added: "FENICS Trader was a logical enhancement to the FENICS Professional workflow solution. It removes the need for duplicate trade entry and manual price discovery via the telephone or electronic messaging." Brunt continues: "As more liquidity providers join the community, our clients will have a wider choice of trading partners, accessible from a single, industry standard application."

FENICS Professional is a suite of pricing, trading, risk management and STP components allowing customers to control, monitor and oversee every aspect of FX option trading and lifecycle management from a single interface. Melanie Rodier has worked as a print and broadcast journalist for over 10 years, covering business and finance, general news, and film trade news. Prior to joining Wall Street & Technology in April 2007, Melanie lived in Paris, where she worked for the International Herald ... View Full Bio