EBS, the FX spot broker, is investigating enhancing its EBS Prime offering by providing hedge funds and CTAs access to its spot FX market.

Non-banking professional FX traders who trade high frequency in FX by assuming risk, such as hedge funds, CTAs and FCMs (collectively known as the Professional Trading Community or PTC) have been looking to banks and brokers such as EBS to facilitate this access.

Together with the EBAS Prime Banks, EBS will enter a detailed research and development phase in December 2004 for a product to provide the PTC access to the EBS Spot system for US and UK funds.

Once the R&D phase is completed and the project is ready for full commercial launch, this become one of the most significant recents developments in the FX trading market globally.

During the pilot phase, EBS will be working with the five current EBS Prime Banks - Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, JPMorgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, together with a number of new EBS Prime Banks who are in the process of coming on board.

The EBS Prime Banks will work with selected PTC customers to test the offering and gauge the appetite for theh service among the global investment management community.

EBS stated: "Participation in the true FX market on EBS Spot would provide the PTC customers with access to increased liquidity together with the benefits of electronic trading on EBS - speed, best rates, reporting, audit trail etc - provided through the EBS Prime Banks."