Best FX single-dealer platform for Asia currencies: UBS

UBS’s single-dealer platform, Neo, demonstrated its resilience throughout the market stress of the past year, providing exceptional FX liquidity to its clients in the Asia-Pacific region across all currencies, including emerging markets pairs and precious metals

Throughout the period of high volatility in the first quarter of 2025, Neo – UBS’s single-dealer platform (SDP) – proved its resilience in the face of large market volatility and exceptional trading demand by consistently providing liquidity to the market and streaming prices without downtime.

The reliability of the platform through this period is the culmination of strategic investments made by UBS to ensure robust liquidity in the region. To this end, the bank has improved its infrastructure and electronic pricing capabilities to consistently provide liquidity during Asia-Pacific (Apac) trading hours – investments that have been instrumental in the bank’s SDP’s growth in recent years.

Over the past year, UBS further increased the amount of liquidity available in the Apac region for FX and non-deliverable forwards (NDFs), and has significantly upped liquidity of gold and silver – two precious metals with increasing relevance in Asia. The bank also now has the ability to support swaps streaming, another innovation to support clients’ evolving needs in the region.

“The platform has been stress-tested a lot in 2024 and 2025, and we are proud that the investments we have made to ensure the stability and resilience of the platform have paid off,” says Francis Phuang, head of e-FX distribution, Apac, at UBS. “Despite the extreme market volatility and record volumes we had in Q1 2025, the platform remained online, was stable and continued to be resilient at all times.”

“Streaming liquidity has been a game-changer, especially in volatile markets,” says Phuang. “We have heard of liquidity providers disappearing from the stack entirely during those volatile times, with liquidity significantly reduced. In contrast, our platform remains online and tradable liquidity continues to flow.”

Depth of liquidity, while important in all markets, plays a particularly significant role in Asia because, during Apac trading hours, liquidity has historically been thin. Phuang points out that this is slowly changing as more market participants, especially hedge funds and banks, enter the market, as witnessed by the high FX volume growths seen in the region in recent years. And UBS’s increasing focus on NDFs and precious metals – the two fastest-growing products in Apac – has significantly solidified that advantage.

“As currency spreads race to the bottom, the ability to provide consistent pricing and liquidity for emerging markets currencies such as NDFs, and commodities such as precious metals, is something I think sets us apart,” says Phuang. “Increasing liquidity access and targeting liquidity gaps left by our competitors has allowed us to generate additional platform volume from existing clients and attract new client flows. The ability to stay online during Asia hours, especially when liquidity is poor, has been crucial for client retention and acquisition.”

It is in uncertain times that the true value of an SDP shines. In addition to robust liquidity, UBS’s Neo offers front-to-back offerings that other platforms cannot. Among others, the platform provides a wide range of pre- and post-trade analytics that allow clients to set price alerts and perform a range of scenario analyses on their trading strategies.

“Sophisticated clients value having a partnership with their liquidity provider, especially during volatile times,” says Phuang. “They value the bespoke solutions UBS can offer them through Neo.

“A big proportion of our client revenue in Asia comes from Neo, and we expect the uptake of our platform to continue far into the future.”

UBS was named Best FX single-dealer platform for Asia currencies at the FX Markets Asia Awards 2025.

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