Barx forex options trading extended to Asia

Barclays Capital has extended the remit of its Barx electronic trading platform to include the remote trading of vanilla foreign exchange options in Asia. The upgrade will offer traders live two-way streaming of tradable prices across 17 currency pairs from durations varying from overnight up to one year.

The UK dealer was the first to launch two-way electronic pricing of forex options last January, and although Barclays Capital had initially planned to introduce more currency pairs, raise auto-quoting levels and add higher tenors by the end of last year, the dealer now says the platform will be further expanded “in the near future”.

“Over recent years, electronic dealing has become the standard in spot markets, but, until now, the risk management and price distribution technology has not existed to deliver option pricing electronically that can match the liquidity and pricing of voice dealing,” said Ivan Ritossa, global head of forex at Barclays Capital. He said he expected electronic trading of forex options to become the market standard before long.