Awards: Deutsche Bank

When Deutsche Bank first rolled out its single-dealer platform, Autobahn, it caused a revolution in electronic foreign exchange trading. Autobahn has been the main channel through which the German bank has traded with its clients electronically ever since, but in today’s smart phone-driven world, classic FX platforms are starting to appear a bit monolithic.

“We are always improving and updating Autobahn, but this time we really wanted to look at how clients interact with the platform and the information available there,” says Maria Prata, managing director and head of FX e-commerce sales at Deutsche Bank.

Realising the six-stage process required for clients to fill in an order entry form was way too cumbersome in today’s markets, the bank set out to develop and launch an intuitive, Google-like interface for clients called Pandora.

Deutsche Bank’s Pandora has been voted to receive the highly commended status in the e-FX Initiative of the Year category at the 2018 FX Week e-FX Awards.

“Today, information is available at your fingertips, and if you put something in a search engine you even get related suggestions and topics. It’s much more about having that information available and coming back to it any time you want,” says Prata. “We wanted to replicate this in currency markets and provide a similar FX-at-your-fingertips service.”

We wanted to replicate this in currency markets and provide a similar FX-at-your-fingertips service

Maria Prata, Deutsche Bank

Pandora gives instant access to the services and applications available on Autobahn, but in a much easier to access way. If a client types in EUR/USD, Pandora will bring up search results such as indicative price and offers instant access to spot liquidity, as well as swaps entry, options and order entry.

Order entry has been reduced to just one step. An order to sell half a million of EUR/USD at 1.21 would have required filling our individual fields on the order entry form in the past, but with Pandora, typing in “sell EURUSD 500K @1.21 sl” and hitting ‘enter’ brings up the completed order screen with details of the trade already entered into relevant fields, leaving traders to simply click ‘submit’ to send the order.

Easy requests

Sending more complex requests such as contingent orders are also easy to do, and terms such as ‘cable’, ‘GBP/USD’, ‘ninja’ or ‘USD/JPY’ are also understood by Pandora.

“Clients are also able to get much better access to products that they may not have seen or used much before. Things like research, market colour and market data are much more visible, and easier to access than before,” Prata says.

“It’s really important to give clients the flexibility and controls they need for interacting with the information we can offer using technology. Autobahn FX was the beginning – Pandora is the future,” she adds.

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