There has been published the minutes of the global meeting of foreign exchange committees which took place in Tokyo on 23 March 2015. The meeting involved representatives of foreign exchange committees from 8 major financial centres to discuss issues related to the foreign exchange market, including:

• the Global Preamble: codes of best market practice and shared global principles. Participants unanimously endorsed the new global preamble to the respective industry codes and agreed on two further actions to build on this work. Participants agreed that there will be work to discuss the scope for further harmonisation of the various codes of conduct adopted by the committees based on analysis of the similarities and differences of the existing codes of conduct, as well as work examining ways to promote consistent adherence by foreign exchange market participants to the Global Preamble and the various codes of conduct;
• implementation of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) report on foreign exchange benchmarks. Amongst other things, participants discussed the separation of fixing orders from other orders, as recommended by the FSB report, and noted that many dealers have established internal guidelines and/or procedures for separating orders, but acknowledged that physical separation is often problematic for smaller banks or less liquid currency pairs. Participants agreed to commission responses from their members on the implementation of the FSB report’s recommendations by the end of July 2015;
• codes of conduct. Participants reported on their work on reviewing local codes of conduct to incorporate the spirit of the FSB report and the Global Preamble; and
• liquidity in the foreign exchange market. Participants discussed the impact of an increased use of electronic trading platforms and high frequency trading on market liquidity and shared the view that foreign exchange market liquidity merits continued attention, including the potential impact of regulatory developments and changes in market structure and market participants’ behaviour.

View Minutes of the Global Meeting of Foreign Exchange Committees, Tokyo, 23 March 2015