Choosing a Pricing Engine? – It needn’t be a frustrating experience

If you are choosing a pricing engine platform you should ignore the jargon involved, says Aharon Haber, and make business drive the technology decision.

First Published: e-Forex Magazine 15 / Features / July 2004

RFQ (Request for Quote), RFSQ (Request for Streaming Quote), Streaming, White Labelling. These are just some of the technical buzzwords that surface immediately when discussing FX pricing engines. If you are choosing a pricing engine platform lose the lingo, drop the jargon, make business drive the technology decision.A bank looking to provide electronic trading access to its customers has many decisions to make. It must first consider which products to offer. Do its customers expect a “one-stop shop” for a range of electronically traded instruments that might include: equities, CFDs, futures as well as FX spot, FX forwards, and FX Options? Or does the bank expect to provide only FX products. Second, the bank must decide on price distribution channels. Will it be making its prices available via a proprietary customer site, or does its customer base demand access via non-bank, independent portals? Some banks may have a mixed customer base that requires both delivery...continued