FX Poll 2005: The big get bigger - but is it for the best?

Deutsche Bank is the big winner in Euromoney's 2005 FX survey, which has a significantly larger sample size of $40 trillion this year. It not only outstripped UBS but increased its market share to more than 16%. SOARING FOREIGN EXCHANGE trading volumes are being handled by ever fewer players. The barriers to entry for full-scale FX providers are getting higher, resulting in widening gaps in market share. Euromoney's 2005 foreign exchange survey has confirmed that this trend is showing no signs of abating. Volume and market share are crucial for banks that want to make big profits in a market with highly compressed spreads. "The name of the game in foreign exchange is to be one of the consolidators, which is arguably the top five or six," says Stuart Gulliver, co-head of corporate and investment banking at HSBC. "The market is tiering itself, so that a smaller number of banks...