EBS, Icap's market-leading electronic FX business, today announces that Apama, Software AG's leading platform for aggregation and smart execution solutions to the FX marketplace, has been selected to deliver approved third party aggregation to EBS Direct, with UniCredit making the first trade.
EBS Direct is EBS's new relationship-based disclosed liquidity service that enables the direct streaming of tailored prices. The platform is now live with a new purpose-built order routing infrastructure. It leverages EBS's trusted robust network and global desktop presence to offer a transparent, efficient and cost-effective solution that meets the expanding needs of FX market participants.
EBS Market customers who wish to trade on EBS Direct have no additional connectivity requirements and EBS Direct liquidity consumers who are new to EBS only require a single API connection to gain access to streams from multiple liquidity providers.
Dr. Richard Bentley, VP Financial Services at Software AG, commented: "As providers of the leading Apama FX liquidity, risk and execution management platform, we are delighted to partner with EBS on this exciting project. Our many sell-side and buy-side customers using Apama for high volume liquidity aggregation in today's fragmented, fast-paced FX market will benefit from access to the new customer-specific pricing that EBS Direct offers. We see the development of EBS Direct as an important landmark in offering transparency and efficiency to the FX market."
Stephen Totten, Head of FX eTrading at UniCredit, stated: "Both EBS and Apama are integral to our electronic trading platform, and the combination of EBS Direct and EBS Market offers access to diverse and complementary pools of FX liquidity."
Global Head of eCommerce at UniCredit, Robert Entenman, added: "As we continue to grow our online FX business, the build-out of our offering to corporate and institutional clients is aided by such high-quality liquidity provision."
Jeff Ward, Global Head of EBS Direct, said: "The use of Apama as the first aggregation platform to provide access to EBS Direct prices and UniCredit's first EBS Direct trade via Apama are important milestones in the development of EBS Direct.
"As the full launch of the service in Q4 approaches, we're continuing to work with liquidity providers, liquidity consumers and third party platform providers to expand the EBS Direct offering."