EBS Aims to Abolish Need for Last-Look with New Price Feed Upgrade

UK-based interdealer broker ICAP today announced through its EBS BrokerTec business that EBS Live will stream real-time market data to its newly created “EBS Live Ultra” feed. This news was announced in a company press release that described the effort as aimed towards improving transparency and price discovery, which may incidentally lessen the need for last-look.

The company said that the change was also in response to demand and feedback from clients, as the company processes many billions of dollars’ worth of foreign Exchange Exchange An exchange is known as a marketplace that supports the trading of derivatives, commodities, securities, and other financial instruments.Generally, an exchange is accessible through a digital platform or sometimes at a tangible address where investors organize to perform trading. Among the chief responsibilities of an exchange would be to uphold honest and fair-trading practices. These are instrumental in making sure that the distribution of supported security rates on that exchange are effectiv An exchange is known as a marketplace that supports the trading of derivatives, commodities, securities, and other financial instruments.Generally, an exchange is accessible through a digital platform or sometimes at a tangible address where investors organize to perform trading. Among the chief responsibilities of an exchange would be to uphold honest and fair-trading practices. These are instrumental in making sure that the distribution of supported security rates on that exchange are effectiv Read this Term across key FX major pairs for the Interbank market, and thus could potentially affect its end users who could pass such pricing efficiencies to end-user trading clients.

The new upgrade to EBS Live Ultra feed will be available around Q3 2016 and will be delivered by a new binary protocol over multicast to help assure fast and simultaneous delivery.

there’s less likely to be the need, or justification to review client Execution Execution Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Execution is the process during which a client submits an order to the brokerage, which consequently executes it resulting in an open position in a given asset. The execution of the order occurs only when it is filled. There is typically a time delay between the placement of the order and the execution which is called latency.In the retail FX space, reliable brokers always strive to deliver best execution to their clients in order to maintain a solid business relationship with them. This is a co Read this Term on last look venues.

Commenting in the EBS press release, Gil Mandelzis, CEO of EBS BrokerTec, said: “With pricing more clearly and reliably available, in real time, there’s less likely to be the need, or justification to review client execution on last look venues. This will have a positive effect on the market’s ability to rely on firm venues for execution purposes.”

Last-look remains a debated issue as banks or dealers can often decide in the smallest time frames whether or not to reject/reprice or otherwise act upon an order when comparing the order's price against the changing backdrop price of the market (i.e. a last chance to look and compare the order to what is happening before executing).

With the race to zero latency continuing and as FX market pricing becomes more centralized, the need for last-look could be abolished as pricing improves at venues such as those provided by EBS.

Also commenting in the press release, Alex Gerko, co-CEO of XTX markets, said regarding the EBS upgrade: “Streaming market data is definitely a benefit to the market ecology, especially for the primary venues. It creates and promotes greater price transparency which negates the predatory behaviour of some market participants as it allows the broader market to have access to, and quickly reference, real-time pricing data.”