EBS Direct Announces Rulebook Changes to Help Drive Industry Adoption of FX Global Code

LONDON and CHICAGO, March 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- EBS, a leading provider of electronic trading platforms and technology services in foreign exchange markets, today announced an update to its liquidity provider eligibility criteria for EBS Direct, its relationship-based quote-driven market, to help accelerate the industry shift towards full compliance with the FX Global Code.

Building on its long-term commitment to the Code, from April 1 EBS will disable liquidity providers from all EBS Direct liquidity pools by default unless they have signed up to the Code. As a relationship-based platform, clients will be able to maintain relationships with non-compliant liquidity providers if they choose to, but they must proactively opt to do so. Also effective April 1, EBS Direct will update its dealing policy to reduce its "last look" thresholds from 200 to 30 milliseconds.

"As a market-leading platform for FX spot and forwards liquidity, the changes we're announcing today for EBS Direct will accelerate the industry shift towards FX Global Code compliance," said Jeff Ward, Global Head of EBS. "Our new trading rules will create minimum standards for our market while our new transparency tools will help the ecosystem evolve." 

"Any measures that help to increase transparency in the foreign exchange market and support FX Global Code adherence by market participants are welcomed by the Global Foreign Exchange Committee," said its Chair Andréa M. Maechler.

"Credit Suisse (CS) supports adherence to the FX Global Code and we appreciate the work done by EBS Direct to encourage compliance," said John Estrada, Global Head of FX Trading at CS.  "FX must continue to move forward and this work is a step in the right direction."

"We congratulate the efforts and progress made by both EBS and its LPs in tightening the thresholds for last look times," added Zar Amrolia, Chairman & Co-CEO at XTX Markets. "Today's changes from EBS are an important step forward in the industry's journey to zero additional hold times in line with the FX Global Code."

The updates follow a detailed review of trading on EBS Direct, revealing that average last look hold times in 2022 were just 12 milliseconds and 96% of volumes were with liquidity providers that have stated their adherence to the FX Global Code.

To help clients across the ecosystem, EBS Direct is also enhancing its industry-leading and highly transparent transaction cost analysis (TCA) tools, including metrics to monitor flow quality, such as whether a counterparty is co-located with the exchange, and median, 90% and 99% last look hold times.

EBS also provides firm, transparent and anonymous liquidity via its EBS Market central limit order book for spot and NDFs. For more information on EBS see here: https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/ebs.html

As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform.  In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. 

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec and EBS are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD and EBS Group LTD, respectively. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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