FX: A bulge in the back office

FEW, IF ANY, banks will admit it, but the surge in volumes in the foreign exchange market has led to almost intolerable pressure on some of their back offices. The problem has been worsened by the changing way deals are transacted and then booked. Trades that would have resulted in just one ticket a decade ago can now result in more than 100 entries passing through the system.

“We’ve spoken to quite a few banks that have had big volume issues. In fact both banks and trading platforms have had to address this, even for simple products like spot. Ticket processing is one of the biggest issues in FX,” says Octavio Marenzi, chief executive of consultant Celent Communications. “In the past, FX was dominated by the interbank market. Now there is a much wider range of participants, such as asset managers. They have different procedures and that is one reason...