Up until now, Reuters has only ever offered FX trading on its Dealing system which is used by the professional interbank market. Reuters Trading for Foreign Exchange (RTFX) service adds spot and forward currency dealing to the multi-asset mix of fixed income, equities and futures available to 3000Xtra users.

RTFX will offer tradable prices from 14 bank participants, including ANZ, Barclays Capital, Calyon, Danske Bank, Handelsbanken Capital Markets, Lehman Brothers, National Australia Bank, Nordea, Resona Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, a large UK bank and other global and regional institutions.

Initially, Reuters is focusing on developing the electronic FX flow between global and regional banks and their corporate treasury and financial institution customers.

Mark Robson, head of Reuters treasury and fixed income services, says: "Overtime, we will extend RTFX to serve the FX trading needs of a wide range of customers, covering global and regional banks, corporate treasurers and investment and hedge funds."

Bob Smith, director markets technology, ANZ Investment Bank, says participation in the RTFX pilot programme "supports ANZ’s service proposition of ensuring that our customers can choose the delivery channel that is most appropriate for their business needs."

Reuters rival Bloomberg is also working to capitalise on the multi-channel e-FX dealing capabilities of banks operating in the global currency markets. The vendor today announced the availability of streaming FX prices over its Professional desktop service from WestLB and Royal Bank of Scotland Financial Markets. The German bank is the first to connect to the Bloomberg FX Streaming platform using the Cognotec AutoDeal+ e-commerce pricing engine.

Trevor Cowan, managing director and head of rates of FX trading of WestLB, comments: "Increasingly, advanced technology is becoming a key determinant in defining banks' participation in the next generation of FX marketplaces. We believe that establishing new communications channels utilizing cutting edge technology will be a major factor in banks' ability to compete in these markets."

Russel Levi of Bloomberg, adds: "This initiative underscores Bloomberg's commitment to the foreign exchange market."