Market Makers

 

The participants of Forex currency market are divided into two groups according to their activity and influence on currency rates: market-makers and market-users.

 

Market-makers are large banks and financial organizations which determine the current level of the currency rate owing to a significant share of their operations in the total volume of the world's market. Market-makers are constantly in control of different trading instruments, as they are conducting deals for them. Market-makers are market members who implement liquidity of particular instruments, making "buy" or "sell" orders. They are large-scale international banks and financial institutions, which daily make currency operations buying or selling trading instruments for billions of the US dollars. Every market has its own market-makers. Similarly, every Forex broker has its personal market-makers, the quoting rates of which are exploited by it and offered to its clients further on. Among the greatest market-makers such as Deutsche Bank, Mizuho Bank, Barclays Bank, PBS, Citi Bank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Union Bank of Switzerland can be named. In order to define whether the organization is a market maker it is important to consider not only the size of the bank but also its share in the operations on the market and its ability to influence the market by setting-up a price.

 

As mentioned before, that for a particular marker there can be a personal market-maker, we can specify that for the USD/CHF trading instrument market the main market-makers are the Credit Suisse Bank and the Union Bank of Switzerland. For the trading instruments comprising Asian currencies the largest market-maker is the Standard Chartered Bank. As to the ruble instruments, here the major market-makers are the International Moscow Bank and the Onexim Bank. The Central Bank of the Russian Federation can also play this role, which is one of the most active participants in setting-up the quote rates of the currencies vs. the ruble, making different currency interventions, if the ruble rate exceeds the regulated currency rate limits.

 

Market-makers determine the current currency exchange rate by conducting deals with each other as well as with smaller banks, which are also market participants. That is the market-makers who are introducing quote rates to small banks, organizations and individuals. Thus, another notion emerges characterizing these participants – market-users.

 

Market-users are financial organizations, broker companies, small banks and individuals, who are using the quoting rate arranged by market-makers for their operations. Market-users are not aggressive market players, though the total volume of their operations on market can be significant, but the share of each one is minor. The small market-users role consists in either acceptance or not of the rates provided by market-makers. Consequently, market-makers make the price and market users take it.