Standard Chartered has a very strong and well-established reputation and presence in emerging markets, particularly in Asia, the Middle East and Africa and recently completed its acquisition of Korea First Bank.

As an EBS Prime bank, Standard Chartered will be able to offer local and regional banks and the non-bank professional trading community (PTC) access to the world's best FX liquidity pool on EBS.

EBS Prime is a relationship model for the spot FX market which enables leading FX banks to offer their unused credit to other banks and PTCs wishing to participate in the global FX market on EBS Spot, the screen-based anonymous dealing system used by more than 2,000 traders in 40 countries around the world.

Nick Beecroft, Global Head of FX Trading at Standard Chartered said: "Standard Chartered is exceptionally well-established in growth markets. We are well-known as a banker's bank, working in partnership with our financial institution clients who may not have the infrastructure or network that we have, to efficiently provide banking solutions for their clients.

"The addition of EBS Prime to the range of services we can offer existing and new customers accentuates and complements the relationship that we believe is key to extending our footprint in the FX markets."

Mark Monahan, Head of Global Sales and Service at EBS adds: "EBS Prime is the perfect tool to facilitate FX trading in emerging markets. At EBS, we firmly believe that "liquidity goes where liquidity is". By attracting yet more counterparties – and more diverse counterparties – from these key growth areas, Standard Chartered will encourage even more liquidity to the global FX marketplace. We are delighted to welcome them to the EBS Prime family."

Adds Monahan: "There is huge potential for FX growth throughout Asia, the Middle East and parts of Africa. These local and regional banks – and increasingly members of the professional trading community – just need the right access. The significant relationships in conjunction with large available credit in the EBS network of a bank such as Standard Chartered delivers that access."

There are now more than 100 customers using EBS Prime from both the hedge fund and bank segments, through credit relationships with the 17 EBS Prime banks. The current monthly daily average trading volume for EBS Prime is now running at more than USD 13 billion (single count) compared with USD 1 billion in November 2004.

EBS Prime customers are actively trading across both developed and emerging markets, including Croatia, Russia, Poland, Israel, China and Korea. The service allows the EBS Prime banks to increase their fee income from FX from their unused credit, but also benefits their customers by allowing them to trade "directly" in the EBS Spot market in the name of their EBS Prime bank.

Recent research among the FX interbank community estimates that almost half (46.42%) of future FX opportunities will be in emerging markets (see Diagram 1), while independent research on behalf of EBS shows that there are some 1,350-plus financial institutions with banking licenses in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.