FXCM UK Reaches Settlement with the FCA for Trade Execution Practices During 2006-2010

FXCM Inc. ("FXCM”), a leading online provider of foreign exchange (forex) trading and related services to retail and institutional customers worldwide, announces that its U.K. subsidiaries, Forex Capital Markets Limited ("FXCM Ltd”) and FXCM Securities Limited ("FXCM Securities”) (together "FXCM UK”), has entered into a settlement with the Financial Conduct Authority ("FCA”). The settlement addresses trade execution practices concerning the handling of price improvements on FXCM UK’s offsetting orders from August 2006 – December 2010.

Under the terms of the settlement, FXCM UK has agreed to pay fines totaling £4 million to the FCA and to provide approximately $10 million in restitution to the affected clients. FXCM recorded a reserve $15 million in the third quarter of 2013 for this matter and will record an additional $1.9 in the fourth quarter to reflect the terms of the settlement and related expenses. All clients receiving restitution will be notified within 60 days. Of the approximately $10 million being credited under this settlement, the impact on individual traders was typically very limited and averaged $3.70.

"This settlement is a significant step in our efforts to put this legacy trade execution issue behind us,” said Brendan Callan, FXCM UK’s Chief Executive Officer. "We are also pleased with the FCA’s 12 Feb 2014 MarketWatch Newsletter article on trade execution standards and we hope that it helps improve execution practices across the industry. We believe it is imperative that all firms operating in the retail FX and CFD market uphold the same high standards and execution policies which we fully implemented back in 2010. A recent analysis of trades over a six month period demonstrates how our customers have benefitted from our enhanced trading execution policy,” he added.

Price Improvements at FXCM today: Clients Received Over $15.5 Million Dollars from Price Improvement Technology during the Past Six Months

Analyzing a total of 43,128,901 forex and metal trades executed by FXCM during the six month period of August 2013 –January 2014, 6,391,641 or 15% of the trades benefitted from price improvements totaling $15,726,247. Of the total number of trades executed, 4,648,672 trades were limit and limit entry orders. Sixty percent of those limit and limit entry orders were positively slipped providing clients $7,296,520 in price improvements. Of the total trades executed in the six month period of August 2013 – January 2014 clients were executed at their requested price 73% of the time with no slippage. Only 12% of orders were slipped negatively. FXCM is currently one of the only firms in the industry to give price improvements on market and limit orders.

FXCM strongly believes that a No Dealing Desk execution model offers clients full transparency and best execution. The firm considers the NDD business model to be the most equivalent execution model to exchange traded products by offering competitive, market driven prices that are sourced from multiple liquidity providers.

FXCM firmly believes that a No Dealing Desk execution model is the future of the industry and continues to promote the benefits of this model to FXCM customers and prospects.

History:

FXCM’s platforms display the best bid/ask spread streamed from the firm’s liquidity providers plus FXCM’s mark-up. Every FXCM NDD forex trade is automatically offset in a two-step process, designed to ensure that FXCM does not profit from a trader’s losses. In the first step of the execution process, a trader clicks on the price and the order is sent to FXCM. In the second step, FXCM automatically sends the client’s order to one of its liquidity providers to offset the trade.

As of August 2010 FXCM enhanced its trading execution policy to help ensure that clients benefit from both steps (the client’s order to FXCM, and FXCM’s order to its liquidity providers) of positive slippage on all market, limit and limit entry orders. The policy was further enhanced in December 2010 to address all order types, including stop and margin call orders, through FXCM’s No Dealing Desk ("NDD") forex execution model.

FXCM’s execution system prior to August 2010 only offered price improvements to clients in the first step of the process. If a better price became available on FXCM’s platform in the fraction of a second after the client submitted the order but before the order was received by FXCM, the client would benefit from the price improvement. However, FXCM’s previous execution system did not provide clients with price improvements in the second step of the execution process if FXCM was able to offset the order at a better price, excluding FXCM’s markup.

Details for FXCM UK clients can be found here: http://www.dailyfx.com/forex_forum/price-improvements-faq/628088-price-improvement-credit-frequently-asked-questions.html

About FXCM Inc.

FXCM Inc. (NYSE:FXCM) is a global online provider of foreign exchange (forex) trading and related services to retail and institutional customers world-wide.

At the heart of FXCM's client offering is No Dealing Desk forex trading. Clients benefit from FXCM's large network of forex liquidity providers enabling FXCM to offer competitive spreads on major currency pairs. Clients have the advantage of mobile trading, one-click order execution and trading from real-time charts. FXCM's U.K. subsidiary, Forex Capital Markets Limited, also offers CFD products with no re-quote trading and allows clients to trade oil, gold, silver and stock indices along with forex on one platform. In addition, FXCM offers educational courses on forex trading and provides free news and market research through DailyFX.com.

Disclaimer:

Trading foreign exchange and CFDs on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all. Read full disclaimer.

A Price improvement is also referred to as Positive Slippage. Slippage can be negative or positive. Slippage is a natural part of trading and not all trades experience slippage, positive or negative. All price improvements are contingent upon available liquidity at execution.

All references to "FXCM" refer to FXCM Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries.