Four additional clearing firms have joined CME FX on Reuters, as the Chicago futures exchange and London-based information vendor prepare to launch the service in Asia Pacific.
Calyon Financial, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, and Refco join the existing seven clearing firms participating in the service, which brings CME futures trading to Reuters Dealing 3000 users.
ABN Amro, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken, Societe Generale and Fimat International Banque SA formed the beta test group for CME FX, which has since been launched in Europe and North America on 14 March.
In addition, CME and Reuters say that the system will go live in the Asia Pacific region over the next two weeks in key financial centres including Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney.
The expansion comes on the back of positive user feedback for the service, which offers the first major linkage between sell-side traders in the interbank FX market and electronic CME FX futures markets, where hedge funds and other major buy-side participants play a major role.
Dan O'Sullivan, head of spot and forward trading, HSBC Bank USA, says the system has proved a viable avenue for market access.
"Liquidity has been deep, STP trade processing has been smooth and efficient, and the technology is stable," he says. "We plan to continue the roll-out of CME FX on Reuters within the global FX business at HSBC."