Talk about price transparency disappearing: pity the poor foreign exchange salesperson trying to earn some spread revenue on a foreign exchange corporate customer.

On June 6, seven leading banks announced the first multi-dealer foreign exchange service: Fxall.com. The banks behind this new portal are the biggest of the big: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, UBS Warburg Dillon Read, Credit Suisse First Boston, JP Morgan, Bank of America and HSBC. Missing from this group are Chase, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank—but who knows if they are not currently negotiating their way into the consortium.

Using Fxall.com, customers will be able to see spot, forward and option prices from each of their banking relationships supplied simultaneously in real time. They will be able to enter orders on-line, route them appropriately and monitor execution status. The system also promises to capture the efficiencies of straight-through order processing, and allow access to the foreign exchange research and forecasts from the participating firms.

Gaincapital.com

The new on-line currency market-marker announced it has begun live trading in four currency pairs: euro/U.S. dollar, U.S. dollar/yen; British pound/U.S. dollar and U.S. dollar/Swiss franc. Individual currency pairs, including crosses, will be added on an incremental basis. GAIN traders are able to trade directly from live bid/ask quotes and receive access to real-time charting and technical analysis tools and streaming market news.

Swissre.com

Swiss Re has announced it will sell weather derivatives via its ELRiX platform. The put and call options based on heating degree days or cooling degree days are aimed primarily at power utilities, gas distribution companies, heating oil distributors and other companies that need to protect their sales against fluctuating temperatures.

FNX.com

FNX announced eSierra, a series of web-enabled deal-capture trading and tactical risk management tools. Customers are now able to reduce costs by outsourcing the management and support of eSierra's IT infrastructure to a customer-selected application service provider. The ASP will manage and deliver the application to multiple entities from a centralized data center. FNX is also developing Integrated Trading Desktop, which will allow FNX customers to link seamlessly to third-party content providers and legacy systems as well as eSierra components. This is the first phase of the company's Internet strategy for 2000.

Mark-to-future.com

Algorithmics has enhanced the web site dedicated to promoting its risk measurement framework. Visitors can play an on-line target practice investment game that challenges players to create the portfolio with the best risk/return profile. Alternatively, they can browse through a scenarios catalogue that offers a set of examples that point out how history can be used to generate stress scenarios covering a wide range of possible future events. The more technically minded can also download the latest edition of the Mark To Future technical document.

Muniderivatives.com

JP Morgan Securities has launched a municipal derivatives web site that will provide information on a variety of products and strategies to its clients. The site will include tax-exempt and taxable risk management applications using live market rates, as well as a portfolio analyzer that allows users to input data on a portfolio of debt and derivatives and conduct stress test scenarios to understand their exposures to potential market events. The site includes a historical rate database with data from over 2,500 indices, including municipal data.

Enrononline.com

The company announced that transaction value on the site had passed the $50 billion mark. Enrononline.com is a principal-based electronic transaction platform that offers real-time pricing for commodities, including electricity, natural gas, bandwidth, weather, credit derivatives and other products. Users can buy from or sell to Enron electronically. The firm claims it is now the "world's largest e-commerce web site.”

Creditex.com

The firm announced wireless access to its on-line trading room. The service permits authorized Creditex users in the United States to have a wireless view of the Creditex trading room as well as the specialized, deal-specific term sheets detailing transactions. The application, which works on the Palm VII, is available for downloading on the web site.

Garban-Intercapital

The firm announced that it has formed a new division that will focus on developing the group's electronic trading activities. In February, the firm launched ETC—the Electronic Trading Community, an electronic bond-trading platform, which will be expanded to other markets, including derivatives. The firm claims ETC is the second-largest electronic broker in U.S. Treasuries, after E-speed.