Bloomberg executives today unveiled a new feature that enables clients to trade foreign exchange (FX) options through Bloomberg's multi-bank trading platform, FXGO. Through the request-for-quote (RFQ) system, market participants can simultaneously request and consolidate pricing from multiple providers for any currency option.

Bloomberg's FX option solution provides buy-side firms, corporate treasuries and other institutions tools to obtain multiple prices before executing a trade, facilitating a seamless transition to the regulated environment anticipated under new derivatives legislation.

"Regulation is accelerating changes in the FX marketplace and clients want ready-made, sophisticated features to help them meet the latest requirements," said Tod Van Name, Bloomberg’s Global Head of Foreign Exchange, Economics and Commodities. "We make it a priority to provide our clients transparency, deep liquidity and trading efficiencies in today's increasingly complex marketplace."

Bloomberg subscribers' quote requests can be priced via automated bank pricing engines or manually quoted by more than 230 liquidity providers, enabling market participants to trade with major and local market makers with no additional costs to buy or sell-side firms. Bloomberg's options RFQ system supports all common and many exotic strategies in any currency pair.

"Credit Suisse is pleased to be one of the first banks to provide competitive automated FX options quotes through Bloomberg's new service," said Joerg Schmuecker, global head of FX options e-commerce at Credit Suisse. "It is clearly going to be important for end-users of these markets to have access to multiple-bank trading systems as new regulations designed to achieve best execution are introduced."

The FX option technology is integrated with Bloomberg FXGO, connecting more than 5,400 market participants across 100 countries to liquidity providers on the system. Average daily volume on FXGO, which includes spot, outright, non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), swaps and deposit trades, has increased 79% year-to-date.

Bloomberg's FX suite provides pre-trade analytics, price discovery, execution and risk management tools, straight-through processing and integration with Bloomberg's derivative and portfolio management tools. For more information about Bloomberg FX, please visit www.bloomberg.com/fx.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg, the global business and financial information and news leader, gives influential decision makers a critical edge by connecting them to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas. The company’s strength – delivering data, news and analytics through innovative technology, quickly and accurately – is at the core of the Bloomberg Professional service, which provides real time financial information to more than 310,000 subscribers globally.