Thomson Reuters, the world’s leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals, today announced the publication of proposed operational procedures for trading protocols on its FXall platforms, including a codified Provisory Liquidity protocol that governs participants’ use of ‘last look’ liquidity.

The Provisory Liquidity protocol is designed to raise industry standards by outlining clear and consistent eligibility and qualification rules for price makers. It also enables liquidity consumers to make informed trading decisions based on transparent and measurable criteria.

“As a leading independent provider of FX transactions venues, Thomson Reuters is committed to ensuring a confident and effective trading experience for all market participants on all the platforms we operate, while still offering the choice clients need to meet specific trading requirements,” said Phil Weisberg, global head of FX, Thomson Reuters. “Following the new Matching rules we set last year that encouraged high standards of behaviour in primary markets, the updated FXall operational procedures define the same rigorous standards for both our RFQ and Streaming Price trading protocols, where participants transact on a disclosed, relationship basis, as well as our Order Book platform, where participants trade anonymously using either firm or Provisory Liquidity.”

The behavioural and platform controls associated with the Provisory Liquidity protocol empower participants to confidently choose liquidity sources that best suit their needs while mitigating the impact of physical distance on execution quality. They also entitle qualified market makers to manage credit and operational risk when making price and enable intermediaries to offer liquidity to their customers on a riskless-principal basis, thereby enhancing transparency of execution.

“Clients value choice in execution when the choices made available to them are consistently and transparently managed to the highest standard. We therefore designed the new procedures to achieve optimal conditions through a combination of objective and measurable behavioural criteria and platform controls,” continues Weisberg. “More than ever, clients and their liquidity providers seek actionable insight into their execution quality. We provide them with this intelligence.”