FX Spot+ is a firm, anonymous, all-to-all spot FX marketplace, seamlessly connected to CME Group FX futures liquidity through implication technology. FX Spot+ will be hosted in the Chicago matching engine alongside FX futures and FX Link, and is designed to provide OTC traders with unique access through connecting spot FX and FX futures liquidity and a diverse ecosystem of clients.

  Back to Top

FX Spot+ will initially be available for G7 currency pairs and MXN: EUR/USD, USD/JPY, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, USD/CAD, USD/CHF, NZD/USD, and USD/MXN.

  Back to Top

The pricing granularity for FX Spot+ will be 1/10th of a pip (0.1) for the G7 pairs and 5 pips for USD/MXN.

  Back to Top

FX Spot+ will be on the same matching engine as FX futures and FX Link, and as such will match the opening hours of those markets. FX Spot+ matching will open at 5:00 p.m. Central Time (CT) every Sunday, and close at 4:00 p.m. (CT) the following day for 60 minutes before re-opening. This schedule runs from Sunday to Friday.

  Back to Top

Liquidity on FX Spot+ will come from two routes: 

1. Native orders directly from FX Spot+ participants
2. Implied liquidity from FX futures and FX Link through CME Group’s implication technology.

The core of this integration is FX Link, which is a tradable spread between OTC spot FX and FX futures. This allows for implied matching, where (for example) orders placed in the spot market can be represented as an implied futures order and matched with corresponding futures orders; the FX Link futures-spot basis spread will allow for both the FX Spot+ and FX futures liquidity pools to interact. Implication identifies and combines resting liquidity from two related markets to represent an available “implied” resting order in a third, related market - this works in all directions / all combinations between FX futures, FX Link and FX Spot+.

  Back to Top

Volumes in CME Group FX futures rival, and in many cases exceed, the largest OTC FX spot ECNs, and as such offer traders unique liquidity that is foundational to the wider FX market. CME Group FX futures play a critical role in price discovery and price formation, and FX Spot+ will enable a far wider range of traders to access and interact with this liquidity without needing to book, risk manage or settle an FX futures contract. FX Spot+ provides a firm all-to-all spot liquidity pool linked with FX futures liquidity that will improve customer access, increase transparency, and create new trading opportunities.

  Back to Top

No, FX Spot+ clients do not need to establish a relationship with an FCM or the ability to trade, book, risk manage or settle an FX futures contract solely by participating in the FX Spot+ market. FX Spot+ will operate as a spot FX liquidity pool and as such, traders will be trading, booking and settling spot FX transactions.

  Back to Top

Yes, FX Spot+ is open to all usual CME Group/EBS customer types that are eligible contract participants (ECPs). Customers can access FX Spot+ leveraging existing EBS Market connectivity, existing CME Group connectivity, or via EBS Workstation. Customers will need to be documented with EBS Service Company Limited (“EBSSC”) and will need credit to trade either directly with our chosen central FX spot credit counterparty or via one of the supporting FX Prime Brokers. (For the avoidance of doubt, FX Spot+ is not open to direct retail participants but retail brokers are permitted).

  Back to Top

Yes, FX Spot+ is a firm, anonymous, all-to-all spot FX central limit order book. A central FX spot credit counterparty will enable the all-to-all marketplace and allow for pre- and post-trade anonymity.

  Back to Top

Spot trades executed on FX Spot+ will be booked and settled against the central FX spot credit counterparty or against your chosen FX Prime Broker.

  Back to Top

All FX Spot+ participants will need to have a tripartite agreement with EBSSC and the relevant EBS Dealing Resources Company to trade on FX Spot+. Participants with existing contracts with EBSSC for EBS Market or EBS Direct will not need additional contracts for FX Spot+.

  Back to Top

There are multiple ways to connect to FX Spot+:

• Existing FX futures and options customers can use their CME Group connectivity
• Existing EBS Market customers can leverage EBS Market connectivity 
• EBS Workstation 

Existing CME Group and EBS connectivity is reusable. Clients can connect directly to the Chicago matching engine via Market Segment Gateway (MSGW), through CME Convenience Gateways (CGW) via a CME Globex Hub, or through EBS CGW in New York, London, and Tokyo. 

EBS Workstation users will also be able to use their existing connectivity to trade FX Spot+, there will be an additional panel added to see and trade FX Spot+ side by side with the liquidity available on EBS Market.

  Back to Top

Yes, FX Spot+ can be traded manually. FX Spot+ will be offered on the EBS Workstation for manual trading.

  Back to Top

Yes, there is a minimum and maximum order size on FX Spot+, and these amounts differ by currency pair. Please refer to the table below for the minimum and maximum trade sizes for the 8 currency pairs that will be available on day 1 for FX Spot+.

  Back to Top

The natively hosted order types include:

• Limit (DAY, GTC, GTD, FAK)
• Market Order with Protection
• Market-Limit
• Stop Order with Protection
• Stop-Limit

  Back to Top

Subscribers to EBS Ultra market data licenses will have FX Spot+ market data added for free. FX Spot+ market data will also be available as a new market data product to the EBS Market Data Product Schedule. Clients will have the option to choose between derived or internal-only usage rights for this data. The FX Spot+ data is not conflated with FX futures or EBS Market data.

  Back to Top

The matching engine for FX Spot+ will be located in Chicago, Illinois. This location allows for implied technology to be enabled between FX futures, FX Link and FX Spot+. EBS clients will be able to use existing connections in New York, London, and Tokyo to trade FX Spot+.

  Back to Top

Post-trade messages for FX Spot+ will be available via CME STP. All EBS clients must migrate to CME STP solutions before the CPT decommission date. Both CME STP and CME STP FIX currently support EBS trades on CME Globex and CME Group futures and options.

  Back to Top

Implication will work in multiple directions:

• Implied spot prices into the FX spot order book from futures and FX Link
• Implied futures prices into the FX futures order book from FX Spot+ and FX Link
• Implied FX Link spread prices into the FX Link order book from futures and FX Spot+

This multi-directional implication allows for greater interaction between the different markets.

  Back to Top

In all cases, the spot trade resulting from FX Spot+ will settle with the central FX spot credit counterparty or chosen FX Prime Broker and is seen as no different from the intermediation process in place today for the spot leg of an FX Link trade.

As part of the FX Spot+ build, CME Group will be introducing a single Net Open Position (NOP) credit limit methodology that will simplify credit limit management into a single value per counterparty and will augment the current per-currency pair credit limit methodology. Spot credit limits applied will be applicable for both FX Spot+ and FX Link trading.

  Back to Top

There will be a separate EBS Dealing Rules Appendix specific to FX Spot+. It will largely borrow from the EBS Dealing Rules for EBS Market spot. 

  Back to Top

For clients consuming the real-time UDP market data channel, a separate two-level MBP book will be updated. More detail on this is available here. For clients consuming the conflated TCP feed, incremental native and implied order book updates will be blended into a consolidated book to eliminate this work on clients and their vendors. As a consequence, implied orders will not be separately visible.

  Back to Top

FX Spot+ will be offered through EBS Service Company Limited (EBSSC), which is the Switzerland-incorporated CME Group subsidiary that offers spot FX trading on EBS Market and EBS Direct today. Existing EBSSC contracts will cover the ability of EBS clients to trade FX Spot+. FX Spot+ will reside under the same Operating MIC as other EBS segments for spot.

  Back to Top

The basis between spot and FX futures is fundamentally driven by the difference in the number of days between the settlements of spot and the future. The smaller the difference, typically the smaller the basis (which is essentially the forward points). This basis is visible and tradable via FX Link. Traders of FX Spot+ will not have to manage this basis, they will purely be trading, booking and settling OTC spot transactions.

  Back to Top