Fighting for custom

Electronic forex trading is gaining momentum in Asia, and the major e-trading platforms are battling it out with proprietary bank systems to win the business, writes Melvyn Westlake

The bare-knuckle rivalry between the online currency trading platforms, which has already yielded casualties and drained millions of dollars from their promoters’ pockets, is coming to Asia. Although electronic currency trading has not experienced the rapid take-off that bankers and technology firms predicted three years ago, it is starting to gather momentum.

For the operators, however, it is still a very crowded market, with three multi-bank foreign exchange platforms, an array of proprietary