UBS has built a formidable reputation as a key liquidity provider across institutional, retail, corporate and wealth management domains, leveraging its expansive market liquidity, product scale and global distribution network.
UBS's recent acquisition of Credit Suisse has expanded its product offering, increased liquidity, and raised trading limits for key clients, closing market gaps left by Credit Suisse's absence.
The bank has also increased its market share in a number of areas by prioritizing investments in electronification.
In the electronic foreign exchange (eFX) market, UBS has seen a notable year-on-year rise in market share by nearly 16%.
UBS has also focused on electronification in the non-deliverable forward (NDF) market. The bank increased the depth of liquidity clients can access electronically, particularly in one-month Brazilian Real (BMF for BRL), and expanded into International Monetary Market dates where there was significant demand.
Electronic average daily volumes in NDFs grew by 103% year on year. UBS holds a leading market share of over 10% in several Asian NDF pairs.
In FX options, UBS has consistently been ranked in the top two, holding a 15%-16% market share in emerging market options and 13%-17% in G10 options. Options volumes increased by more than a third in H1 2024, year on year.
The bank’s UBS Neo investment banking platform has been a central pillar of its options strategy, providing access to liquidity in over 350 options payoffs across 550 currencies and precious metals. Recent platform updates included a customizable interface, faster price discovery and improved analytics for multi-currency products.
UBS has also made strides in algorithmic execution with the launch of float plus, an enhancement to its float algorithm. This advancement leveraged proprietary algorithms to optimize execution while minimizing market impact.
UBS continues to innovate in swap trading with the introduction of streaming swap liquidity, initially developed for Credit Suisse integration and now available to a broader client base. UBS built a swaps aggregator to improve access to electronic liquidity. The bank has also partnered with Finteum, an interbank platform, to manage the high costs of intraday liquidity buffers in FX swaps.
“During the last year, and in line with our ambition to be as data-driven and technology-enabled as possible, we leveraged machine learning models and launched our ‘FX liquidity monitor’, helping our clients understand and predict availability of liquidity across hourly slots and market events,” says Mathieu Reaud, global head of FX options trading.