FX survey 2020: JPMorgan dominates with more than 10% market share

Finance news

JPMorgan’s market share of 10.78% in this year’s survey was up from 9.81% in 2019 and well ahead of UBS with 8.13%. XTX and Deutsche Bank were not far behind, but then it is quite a gap to last year’s third-placed Citi in fifth.

One of the factors likely to have contributed to JPMorgan’s strong showing is its electronic trading capabilities.

Renowned for investing big sums in technology, earlier this year the bank’s FX e-commerce team was talking about a big increase in volumes of algos for tickets with a notional value above $10 million, with almost two thirds of these orders traded algorithmically in March alone.

UBS has also benefitted from investment in its FX business, including becoming the first global bank to launch an e-FX pricing and trading engine in Singapore in 2019. In addition, the Swiss bank took steps last year towards folding its FX, rates and credit group into a single securities unit.

XTX has firmly hitched its wagon to the anti-last look movement over the last 12 months, a move that seems to have gone down well with clients as it moved up from fourth place last year.

Positive clients

This time last year some analysts were warning that exiting equities and rates would negatively impact Deutsche Bank’s FX franchise. But clients have reacted positively to the bank’s latest restructuring and its decision to have a single salesforce selling FX to all corporates clients rather than servicing smaller corporates through the retail franchise.

Further down the rankings, Jump Trading lived up to its name by advancing from 11th in 2019 to seventh position this year. In the lower tier, Alfa Bank was the big mover rising from 38th to 24th.

There was a new category to fight for this year in the form of disclosed business, where we discarded all anonymised flows.

During Euromoney’s conversations with leading liquidity providers, it had become clear that while they understood the reasoning for including anonymised volume in the overall ranking, it would be helpful for those who didn’t do that type of business to be able to benchmark themselves against others with a similar strategy and reflect genuine client relationships.

FX investors do not want liquidity to become fragmented, as has happened in other markets, but they do want more choice in how they trade and with whom

FX investors do not want liquidity to become fragmented, as has happened in other markets, but they do want more choice in how they trade and with whom.

At the end of last year we reported on how exchanges were trying to be ‘all things to all men’ by creating ‘FX supermarkets’ where clients can choose to trade a variety of products in different ways, for example using a disclosed multi-provider venue to trade longer-dated over-the-counter FX contracts.

It might have been a new category, but it has a familiar face at the top, with JPMorgan once again coming first, this time followed by UBS and HSBC.

If swaps were included, JPMorgan would still top the liquidity rankings, although Deutsche would now occupy second spot with UBS in third place.

Banks

Deutsche was last year’s surprise package, rising from eighth to second in the overall rankings. While the German firm gave back some of those gains this year it did come top in the bank category, swapping places with last year’s winner JPMorgan, which came third in the latest rankings behind UBS.

Corporate specialist HSBC maintained top spot in the non-financial corporates segment, where Bank of America Securities was the big mover, up to second this year from seventh in 2019.

Among leveraged funds JPMorgan secured top position this year, while UBS moved up from fourth to second.

The most notable change in this segment was Bank of New York Mellon, which took third place despite being ranked only 18th in 2019.

Real money market share was much more consistent with last year’s results. State Street retained its top ranking from 2019 with HSBC (fifth last year) and Citi – down from second to third – making up the top three.

Brokers

The segment formerly referred to as ‘FX trading platforms’ was this year renamed ‘all undisclosed and retail brokers’. Again, this was based on feedback from banks who felt that the classification of FX trading platform had become confusing.

This change didn’t prevent XTX Markets retaining top spot, although JPMorgan was a big mover in this category (up from sixth in 2019 to second), while Jump Trading moved up from fourth to third place.

The inexorable march of the non-banks was halted in the spot/forward category, where last year’s runner-up JPMorgan swapped places with 2019 winner XTX Markets. Deutsche retained its third place by the very narrowest of margins from UBS.

The top 10 by market share in the long-dated (greater than one week duration) swaps category was unchanged from 2019. However, there was an eye-catching change at the top of the rankings with HSBC leaping from sixth place last year to gain top spot. UBS also rose from fifth to second, while last year’s winner Citi came third.

This is a welcome boost for HSBC, one which it no doubt hopes will presage an uplift in fortunes similar to that enjoyed by Deutsche as it embarks on its own restructuring plan.

Swaps

When all swaps are considered, Deutsche (seventh in the long-dated swaps category) assumes top ranking with Citi moving from first place in 2019 to second ahead of HSBC, which moves up from sixth place last year.

Deutsche also came out on top in the options category, rising from third place in 2019 and swapping places with JPMorgan. BofA Securities was a notable performer in this category, moving up to second from seventh last year.

This is a result for BofA in a market where a number of developments – perhaps most notably reduced volatility among the larger currencies – have increased the attractiveness of options as a tool for reducing currency exposure.

Emerging markets

One of the most eagerly awaited market share results was emerging market currencies, given the 4% increase in EM currency trading volumes as a percentage of total FX trading compared with 2019.

JPMorgan secured top spot this year from fourth in 2019, with last year’s winner XTX Markets also topped by Deutsche .

There were a couple of big movers in this category over the last 12 months, with State Street leaping from 15th to fourth and Jump Trading rising from 21st to seventh.

Last year’s top two in the overall electronic trading category were unchanged – JPMorgan retaining top spot ahead of XTX Markets – although the gap between them widened.

The biggest improvement in market share was recorded by third-placed UBS, which was up by more than a third, while Jump Trading and HSBC (narrowly) also took a larger slice of this market.

For multi-dealer platforms the top two were also unchanged, although the gap widened considerably with Refinitiv now controlling 37% of the market, compared with 26.2% for GlobalLink.

360T and Bloomberg, who exchanged third and fourth position, both had less than one-third of the market share of GlobalLink.

Customer satisfaction

The demands of competing on all fronts was reflected in the disparity between customer satisfaction and market share in this year’s poll where the top two liquidity providers occupy sixth and ninth position respectively.

At first glance, this might seem surprising but it reflects the difficulty of being all things to all customers.

The likes of JPMorgan, Deutsche and HSBC cover multiple client and product segments, and it is extremely difficult to keep such a diverse group of clients with such a wide range of needs and priorities happy all the time.

In contrast, an XTX or State Street have a more niche group of clients and service offering.

The overall customer satisfaction ranking saw State Street (ranked ninth by market volume) come out on top

The overall customer satisfaction ranking saw State Street (ranked ninth by market volume) come out on top, moving up from second in last year’s ratings.

There were several big moves in the top 10, with Bank of New York Mellon taking second spot, having been ranked fifth last year, while Deutsche rose from 21st in 2019 to fifth position and RBC Capital Markets jumped from 20th last year to seventh in 2020.

UBS and HSBC in ninth and 10th position are the other newcomers in the top 10 this year.

Morgan Stanley came top in the algorithmic trading segment, while State Street was ranked first for service and Bank of New York Mellon won in both the research and Salesforce categories.

This year’s winner Refinitiv swapped places with Bloomberg in the multi-dealer platforms category.

A new customer satisfaction category – ability in emerging market (central and eastern European, Latin American and Asian) currencies – was won by Citi, narrowly ahead of Bank of New York Mellon with HSBC in third.

Euromoney is particularly interested in the outcome of this category as it has been looking at ways of measuring performance in emerging markets for some time to see if a smaller bank could usurp a larger rival by offering really good service in niche currencies.

The result reflects Citi’s strength in the Americas in particular.