Algos Are ‘Dominating’ Buy-Side Currency Trading, Report Says

Currency traders’ increasing reliance on algorithms is sparking a debate about the merits of traditional banks versus independent firms in the $9.5 trillion-a-day foreign-exchange market, a new report says.

Roughly a quarter of buy-side trading desks use or plan to use nonbanks for FX executions, much of which is done via algos, according to a Crisil Coalition Greenwich report published Tuesday. A key reason for that is the quality of their offerings and pricing models as well as their “technology-first” approach, the financial-services consulting firm said.