Jean-Marc Bouhelier, Chief Operating Officer, Instinet explained, "We are pleased to be collaborating with Citibank to bring our clients a sophisticated foreign exchange product. The Instinet FX Cross is a natural extension of Instinet's Analytical Trading business and represents another innovative use of 'crossing' as an execution tool in which customers can benefit from Instinet's core values of anonymity, price transparency, neutrality and execution quality."
"We at CitiFX are very excited to have worked with Instinet for several months to develop a unique new currency-crossing product for global investors that will transform the execution of large currency transactions," says Vikas Srivastava, Global Head of e-Commerce at Citibank's foriegn exchange division, CitiFX. "The product meets customers' needs for anonymity and price transparency and minimises market impact, a powerful combination that is not provided by any other FX execution platform."
The Instinet FX Cross will be useful for customers executing large transactions where market impact can be costly and anonymity is valuable. The CitiFX Benchmark will provide the exchange rates at which all trades with Citibank will be executed. Instinet, through Instinet Global Holdings, Inc., will manage all order taking and matching functions, with Citibank acting as counterparty on transactions. All executions will be processed by CitiFX's back office. Special booking and clearing systems have been developed to preserve client anonymity and no member of a traditional trading floor will learn of matched flows. Clients may elect to have unmatched residuals of orders returned to them or have them executed by CitiFX at the same Benchmark fixing. Initially, the FX Cross will offer executions in 12 currencies and 2 crossing sessions per day. (For additional information log on to www.instinetfxcross.com).
CitiFX Benchmark provides clients and the general market with a series of 42 spot and 10 forward independently audited foreign exchange rates. These rates are set eleven times per day in the three major currency-trading centres. A comprehensive database of historical fixing rates is also available. Instinet, through Instinet Corporation, has been an innovator in developing crossing capabilities since 1986. Instinet Global Crossing was the first electronic crossing service, electronically matching natural buy and sell orders at fixed points in time.
