BMO Capital Markets provides top- ranked research, exceptional service and superior execution to help clients navigate the markets. Mike Schnurr, Kate Stothers, and Ed Solari of the Global Fixed Income Currencies and Commodities (FICC) within BMO

Capital Markets give us an insider look at their institutional trading operations and their plans for the year ahead.

Can you provide status on BMO Capital Markets institutional FX business?

BMO’s institutional FX business has grown significantly over the past few years. This has been achieved by fully integrated client coverage making targeted efforts to ensure BMO is seen as a strategic partner to our clients across all FICC asset classes. As such, BMO has leveraged our relationships in other areas of our firm to strengthen our FX institutional franchise.

How has the institutional FX business grown in the last year?

While the institutional FX business continues to grow its revenue base by leveraging existing BMO relationships, we have spent the last year intensely focused on resource optimization and technological enhancements.

 

 

How are industry and regulator drivers impacting FX institutional trading?

The regulatory landscape is ever changing and increasingly complex. Regulatory compliance requires diligent focus to allow us to continue to offer a world-class client experience for our sophisticated institutional client-base. A robust approach to regulatory oversight reaches well beyond market and trade disclosures – we practice careful coordination with our legal and regulatory businesses partners and proactively and continuously communicate any requirements to our clients.

What advantage does your global presence offer clients?

The institutional landscape continues to change. Globalization of client activity, and coverage, has continued apace. Through strategic resource optimization in Europe and Asia we are in a position to focus even more strongly on the needs of our clients. By having offices in mainland China and Hong Kong we are able to offer specialist insight and market intelligence into the constantly evolving local markets, an important and unique selling proposition for our business. Wrapping this in with our European colleagues allows us to offer our clients seamless 24-hour coverage.

What is your business strategy this year?

We are pursuing aggressive growth in both the US and Europe this year following the strong Canadian blueprint of a fully integrated client model. Specifically, we will leverage our relationships in other are as of our firm outside of Canada, particularly our Fixed Income business that has rolled out aggressive growth initiatives in the US recently. This will be achieved via an organized and targeted plan rolled out by our experienced sales professionals across North America.

We continue to focus on technological enhancements and new product offerings that are the most meaningful to our clients. We have a client- centric approach to adopting new technology based on our clients’ needs which we anticipate based on our strong relationships and the intelligence they provide. We listen to our clients. We will not only introduce better technology but are focused on optimizing resources where it makes sense.

Can you discuss the role of technology in trading?

The FX technology arms race continues as adoption ramps up among buy-side and sell-side players. BMO Capital Markets has launched a refined strategy to bolster our global electronic X presence. In addition to building out a world-class algorithmic FX trading suite that will launch in the next quarter, we’ve enhanced our global coordination to provide seamless, 24-hour coverage in a wide array of products/ specialties. We’ll continue to partner with our clients to build market technology solutions that serve the needs of our clients and help them to achieve their goals.