HSBC provides clients with forex charting tools

HSBC has begun rolling out a web-based currency data charting application from UK vendor TraderMade to its corporate and investment clients. The application, called FX Charting, will support trading and hedging strategy decisions.

FX Charting became available internally on December 6 last year for testing by HSBC’s e-commerce staff and some salespeople. The application is now being used by 25 FX sales staff globally to advise clients and to e-mail charts to them. It is now being rolled out to clients themselves, which can access it via the bank’s client Web portal, HSBCNet, or through the FXall trading portal.

Jake Smith, associate director for e-commerce at HSBC in London, said only a handful of clients are using the application so far but take up is expected to grow rapdily. "In terms of a core global user base, we are probably talking about 250 firms in year one, rising to approximately 1,500 firms. It’s a case of getting it out to clients and letting them use it," he added.

Smith says there are probably about 30 clients using the application via FXall. But the FXall link only offers charting on the 15 most-traded currency pairs, whereas FX Charting on HSBCNet offers five years of FX spot data on 45 currency pairs. Both sets of data are supplied by TraderMade.

From the HSBCNet site, users click on a currency pair, which links to a Web site hosted by Tradermade. This screen allows users to view the data in different charting styles and provides a series of tabs to apply different studies and oscillators to the charts, such as moving averages, stochastic values, the Relative Strength Index, momentum and rate of change. These are displayed either directly on the main chart or in a separate window below the main chart.