Russian retail FX broker Alpari is on the lookout for alternative providers of price quotes for the extremely popular USD/RUB pair after tech issues have plagued market data for the pair over the past week.
The problems with the USD/RUB pair first emerged on Thursday November 27th this year, as an inflow of spike prices caused the broker to move all USD/RUB positions to “Close Only” mode and then to suspend trading with the pair altogether. Trading with the pair resumed on Friday November 28th but the company was forced to cut the time of the trading session, whereby instead of 22:50 (EET), trading with the USD/RUB now closes at 20:00 (EET).
In a message on Alpari’s forum, a representative of the broker explains the market data problems in detail. The representative says that the high volatility on RUB pairs, encouraged by the decision of the Bank of Russia to let the currency float freely, has led to changes in the services provided by counteragents.
“Not all liquidity providers have maintained the promised spread sizes and have guaranteed stable quotes flow without unexpected tech problems”, the post in the forum says.
The representative of the company continues to say that Alpari is now looking for new providers that will offer the best combination of spread size and stability of price feed.
The problems happen as the interest in trading with the Russian Ruble grows, with traders attracted by super volatility. The prices of Ruble pairs have been affected by various factors – geopolitical events, the price of oil, as well as interventions by Russia’s central bank. For that matter we should mention that earlier today the Bank of Russia announced a new set of measures to stabilize the national currency, including the setting of minimum Repo rates, linked to Libor rates.
Alpari has been experiencing price spike issues with other currency pairs too. Such problems have led to the shift of EUR/RUB (Euro/Ruble), USD/ILS (US Dollar/Shekel), EUR/ILS (Euro/Shekel) and GBP/TRY (British Pound/Turkish Lira) deals to “Close Only$ mode last month.
You can follow the discussion about USD/RUB trading at Alpari here, and Alpari’s announcement on the new USD/RUB trading times can be found here.