There’s an old saying in Britain: “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.” It’s something some of my loaded readers from the FX market seem to have taken a little too literally. I can’t believe how many well-paid bankers have been on to me pleading for a free subscription to the FiX. The release of this year’s Euromoney FX poll further highlighted the fact that many participants in the FX market are quite frankly – and using another English saying – as tight as a duck’s arse.
I recently had one global FX head of a major bank asking me why he couldn’t access the poll results. “It’s probably because you took out an annual subscription more than a year ago and it’s run out,” I replied. “If you renew it, you’ll be able to see the poll.”
Later the same week, another dealer at the same bank sent me an email saying that he couldn’t read the FiX because the global head hadn’t subscribed. “Tell him to rearrange the following,” I wrote back. “Arse, as, duck’s, as, tight, a.”
Still, this is nothing compared to the rant we received from a managing director at a bank that ranked outside the top 10 in the poll. When he read it, my esteemed editor went ballistic, writing me up a couple of sentences of extremely inflammatory copy. “X bank’s not had a brilliant few years in investment banking. And nowhere is this more the case than in the FX market. Doesn’t its management care about the FX business?” he fumed.
His ire was provoked by the MD’s parsimonious approach. “I am interested in the weeklyFiX column, but I can’t pay £684 a year just for that,” he wrote.
My response would have been: “Listen shag, it’s probably no more than the pricey bottle of wine you’ll charge to your expense account next time you’re out on some important client entertainment.” But my ed. and his boss above him wanted more. What really got them irate were the aspersions the MD cast on the poll. “I’m not interested in the Euromoney FX survey,” MD claimed, even though he had gone to considerable lengths to access it. “It’s not representative of the full FX market.”
I’m almost tempted to name him to spice this column up a bit. Put his names in lights, I reckon, and his ego will dictate that he subscribes. But that would be a little unfair. No poll is perfect, but it’s by far the best one out there, which is why so many banks take it so seriously. What I find funny is that it’s only those banks that go down in the rankings that really complain about it.
As for getting things for nothing, perhaps if I can get a free order routing system with built in algos, plus a matching system for www.yoursmineshag.com, the revolutionary platform I was involved with last year, I’ll see if I can persuade my respected editor to throw in a couple of free subscriptions.
