FEATURE
Partnering with clients
For Stamos Fokianos, global head, eFX Trading, at RBC Capital Markets the focus is very much on customisation. He says: “As we continue to invest in building up our e-FX business, we try to create economies of scale in common components. When it comes through to the final external delivery of the product through different channels, a one-size-fits- all-approach is not appropriate. We are in regular dialogue with our client-base and we focus on providing the functionality that they need in order for them to be more efficient in managing their operational costs and risks. In a commoditised asset class, like e-FX, it is not just about the price, it is about partnering with clients for a win-win relationship.”
He says that RBC helps its corporate customers through fuller integration and by being close to their payments process, as well as understanding the overall set-up of their treasury operation. According to Fokianos: “Real- money managers demand a faultless level of STP because any e-FX failures will have a direct impact on their securities settlements and will cause losses to their client investment portfolios, whereas hedge funds require competitive pricing, coupled with fast and efficient fills in fast moving markets. RBC Capital Markets is not just providing the differentiated services that our clients need, but it does so through their chosen eChannel, whether multi or single bank.”
RBC’s eFX offering is provided through its proprietary portal, as well as FXall, Currenex, 360T and Bloomberg. Fokianos says the bank is also considering RTFX in an effort to approach the bank segment more effectively.
He says: “We are the largest Canadian bank and we are therefore very strong in our home currency. We do
68 | april 2011 e-FOREX
not rest on our laurels though; we have knowledge, experience and access to liquidity in all spot and forward G10 currencies, as well as core emerging markets business. Our clients know that we put a great deal of care and attention in executing their deals and orders; as a consequence, combined with our technology improvements, we are steadily increasing our market-share.”
Te FX industry has seen an increase in the number of tickets and a decrease in the nominal amounts per ticket. Te result of this is an increase of operational risk across the market. Avoiding manually keying in those tickets (sometimes twice in different systems) goes a long way towards avoiding individual company losses as well as reducing systemic risk. Systems integration through an API is becoming increasingly common. Tere are APIs that focus on pricing and execution, but Fokianos says that RBC also has connectivity that takes care of post- execution tasks, such as confirmations and allocations. “Highly transactional clients, and of course FX banks, are now using their operations teams
to investigate ‘exceptions’, rather than manually going through every trade done on a particular day,” he adds.
While Fokianos says it is true that certain clients use trading strategies that cross different asset classes, e-FX is very versatile, in the sense that it is always present when a cross-border deal is done, he adds that it is also true that many large and active clients keep separate desks by asset class because it helps them potentially reduce their operational costs.
Supporting all models
While a UK based fund, investing in US securities, can either go cross-asset on every deal they do, or just pass its cross-border FX orders to its internal FX execution desk; the latter will then attempt to net out the different orders and work the balance, or
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