Illustration: Baptiste Virot for Bloomberg
The Big Take
Old School FX Traders Are Being Replaced by Algos With Names Like Viper
With machines now handling more than 75% of the trading in some FX markets, the giants of Wall Street are racing to make sure their systems are ready.
Inside BNP Paribas SA, a trader named Viper is now handling vast swaths of the French bank’s currency trading business.
Viper, along with Iguana and Chameleon, are code names for algorithms that the lender developed to make life easier for the hundreds of hedge fund managers and corporate treasurers that rely on its systems. The three live inside Rex — a reptile-themed trading tool that’s cemented BNP’s edge in the $7.5 trillion-a-day foreign exchange market.