ICAP Gambles on Super Fast Currency Data With Strings Attached
- EBS Live Ultra pumps out price updates five times faster
- Executive says upgrade should make market ‘healthier’
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ICAP Plc, which has seen its share of currency trading dwindle in recent years, is rolling out an unprecedented plan to revive liquidity in its electronic market.
The venue will feature a price feed called EBS Live Ultra that updates five times as often -- every 20 milliseconds -- as the old one. But it comes with a catch, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg: at least 40 percent of the time, customers of the $50,000-per-month service must passively provide bids and offers, generally viewed as a less aggressive form of buying and selling. That trading must amount to $200 million or more a day.