Institutional FX in Red: Integral Also Reveals Lower Volumes

Institutional trading platform provider Integral reported its monthly ‎trading volumes for April 2019, which declined from a month earlier as weaker volatility across financial markets hit activity on institutional FX venues.

During April 2019, Integral disclosed that a total ADV of $31.2 billion was traded, which was lower by 20 percent over a monthly timeframe, compared to $39.0 billion reported back in March 2019.

In addition, April volumes were below those reached in the same month a year ago when the company integrated a slew of new buy-side systems into Integral’s OCX ECN, encouraging more trading across all transaction types, including spot, forwards, and swaps.

Specifically, the latest figures reflect a 10.9 percent decrease when weighed against $35 billion reported back in April 2018.

Euronext’s FX trading venue, Fastmatch, which is also a big player in the foreign exchange market, reported a 20 percent rise in average volumes last month. FXSpotStream’s trading platform also revealed earlier this week that its trading volumes were just $703 billion for the month, down 11 percent month-on-month from $792 billion back in March 2019.

Tending to the Recent Surge in Demand for Cryptocurrencies Cryptocurrencies By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the netw By using cryptography, virtual currencies, known as cryptocurrencies, are nearly counterfeit-proof digital currencies that are built on blockchain technology. Comprised of decentralized networks, blockchain technology is not overseen by a central authority.Therefore, cryptocurrencies function in a decentralized nature which theoretically makes them immune to government interference. The term, cryptocurrency derives from the origin of the encryption techniques that are employed to secure the netw Read this Term

Integral’s Open Currency Exchange (OCX) brings a wide spectrum of FX market participants into a single integrated network of Liquidity Liquidity The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent The term liquidity refers to the process, speed, and ease of which a given asset or security can be converted into cash. Notably, liquidity surmises a retention in market price, with the most liquid assets representing cash.The most liquid asset of all is cash itself.· In economics, liquidity is defined by how efficiently and quickly an asset can be converted into usable cash without materially affecting its market price. · Nothing is more liquid than cash, while other assets represent Read this Term, where they can trade with each other. Clients of the OCX pay a monthly fee for access to the exchange, instead of per-trade fees. While it initially launched with a monthly subscription cost of $275, it was soon lowered to $2.75 per million to accommodate the trading volume of each user, rather than imposing an even charge to clients of all sizes.

Since the deployment of the platform in 2015, the Silicon Valley-based company has been working on several enhancements which bring major changes for existing clients that use the OCX, and which could also attract new customers.

Integral has been tending to the recent surge in demand for cryptocurrencies. The financial technology company initially integrated a handful of the world’s leading digital currencies into its OCX trading platform in late 2017. And earlier last year, it expanded its crypto offering to include 14 different virtual coins, linking 16 crypto exchanges from around the world.