A foreign exchange aggregator or FX Aggregator is a class of systems used in

Forex trading The foreign exchange market (Forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates for every currency. It includes all as ...

to aggregate the

liquidity Liquidity is a concept in economics involving the convertibility of assets and obligations. It can include: * Market liquidity, the ease with which an asset can be sold * Accounting liquidity, the ability to meet cash obligations when due * Liqu ...

from several liquidity providers. Aggregators usually provide two main functions; they allow FX traders to compare price from different liquidity venues such as banks-global

market maker A market maker or liquidity provider is a company or an individual that quotes both a buy and a sell price in a tradable asset held in inventory, hoping to make a profit on the '' bid–ask spread'', or ''turn.'' The benefit to the firm is that ...

s or ECNs like Currenex,

FXall FXall (FX Alliance Inc) is a foreign exchange aggregator providing electronic trading to banks and brokers using an electronic communication network with headquarters in New York. The company provides electronic trading in the foreign exchange m ...

Hotspot FX The Knight Capital Group was an American global financial services firm engaging in market making, electronic execution, and institutional sales and trading. With its high-frequency trading algorithms Knight was the largest trader in U.S. equities ...

and to have a consolidated view of the market. They allow traders to trade with many participants using a single

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

or a single trading terminal. Some of the systems support order sweeping (an order is split into the chunks which are sent to the respective counterparties based on the price, time and other attributes of the quotes from these counterparties), other systems route the whole order to a single liquidity provider who is chosen by an order routing algorithm embedded into an aggregator.

Technology

FX Aggregator implementation is complex as the technology needs to be fast (Latencies in microseconds) and flexible. Some banks developed their own FX Aggregators and others bought existing products from technology vendors.

Aggregators

There are many aggregators offered in the market: smartTrade LiquidityFX, Thomson Reuters Dealing Aggregator, Liquid-X, Liquidity Pool, FlexTrade, BidFX, Quotix, Integral, Currenex,

LMAX Exchange LMAX Group is a global financial technology company which operates multiple institutional execution venues for electronic foreign exchange (FX) and crypto currency trading. The Group's portfolio includes LMAX Exchange, LMAX Global and LMAX ...

, MarketFactory, EBS Direct, DealHub, Seamless FX, Gold-i Matrix and others.

References

{Reflist Foreign exchange market Financial software Electronic trading systems