Best Asia FX spot house: UBS

Thanks to its significant investments to boost spot liquidity in the Asia-Pacific region, UBS was able to continue quoting competitive prices throughout bouts of extreme volatility in the latter part of 2024 and first quarter of 2025

Spot trading reached record highs in April 2025 due to the extreme volatility in FX markets as the dollar was put under pressure amid rising trade tensions. Price movements in Asia-Pacific (Apac) were particularly affected because much of the volatility that emanated from tariff announcements made late in the day in the US when markets there were closed coincided with the early hours of the Asia trading session when liquidity was on the low end.

Despite such high volatility, UBS continued to quote prices throughout and maintained high levels of spot liquidity on its Neo FX trading platform and other electronic channels, as it did when volatility hit the Japanese yen and yen crosses in August 2024.

“April was probably one of the most volatile periods FX markets have seen, especially within Asia hours, because, when tariff headlines hit at 10pm in New York, which is 10am our time, there is limited liquidity to cover fast-moving spot prices,” explains Joby John, head of FX trading, Apac, at UBS. “Our platform remained resilient. We made sure our liquidity stayed no matter what, and we continued to show prices to our clients. This is a hallmark that our clients have come to rely on over the years.”

“Volumes were 50% higher in April compared to a typical month last year,” says Paul Buttenmueller, global head of e-FX principal trading at UBS. “Under these very volatile conditions, we continued pricing competitively even in the less liquid emerging market and precious metal currency pairs. We kept providing deep liquidity, to the delight of our clients, and received a lot of positive feedback.”

Neo’s stable performance and resilience throughout the recent market turmoil is central to UBS’s commitment to providing liquidity to the Apac region, come what may. To fulfil this commitment, the bank has made significant investments in recent years to increase the overall capacity of its trading platform.

The bank boosted the provision of spot liquidity for Apac on Neo and improved latency across much of its global network, thereby reducing round-trip times to and from the region. This is especially important for Asia as spot price discovery information generally flows from London and New York into the region, and the network upgrades made by UBS mean that more data is now able to flow back to the region at greater speed.

To augment its liquidity provision, UBS is accessing several FX and precious metal futures markets to broaden the pool of available hedging venues. Additionally, to broaden its currency spot offering for clients in Apac, UBS has opened trading in new FX spot pairs, including some from the Middle East – such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait – as well as some additional frontier currencies. Significant improvements were also made to gold and silver spot liquidity, and platinum and palladium loco London were added to its selection of spot precious metals – products that are increasingly popular in the region.

Buttenmueller points out that the investments the bank has made in recent years have translated into the bank providing robust levels of spot liquidity even during volatile periods, unlike other market-makers – particularly non-banks – that tend to retreat from the market when their risk limits have been reached.

“Despite the increased interest from liquidity providers in FX spot trading during the Apac time zone, their often relatively tight risk limits mean that, in the illiquid period just after the weekend or when there are big news announcements, some FX spot liquidity providers might be forced to step back, which can create challenging liquidity conditions,” he says.

At UBS, the combination of voice spot trading liquidity and the robust e-FX trading platform makes maintaining liquidity provision during times of high volatility a key differentiator. This is because technology allows for scale and resilience while the human factor plays a role to provide clients with market colour and additional liquidity access.

“The backbone of our offering is tech-enabled,” says John. “This is the only way we can maintain both scale and resilience during volatile periods. The human presence is there to differentiate the offering and provide colour to clients on what is driving price action.”

UBS was named Best Asia FX spot house at the FX Markets Asia Awards 2025.

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