FX Week: «Lava spreads to Russia»

MOSCOW — Lava Trading will introduce trading in the Russian rouble on its FX trading platform, Lava FX, it announced at the ACI Russia International FX seminar in Moscow last week.

LavaFX will offer trading in the rouble against the US dollar and the euro. The currency pairs will be available on the platform later this year.

David Ogg, New York-based chief executive officer, LavaFX, said Lava is pleased to play a role in bringing spot trading in the Russian rouble to the global market-place. «We look forward to working with ACI Russia and the country’s leading financial institutions to make around-the-clock trading in this currency a reality,» he said.

According to figures from ACI Russia, 2005 saw a 40% year-on-year increase in trading volume, with average daily and annual turnover of $30 billion and $7.3 trillion respectively.

Igor Souzdaltsev, ACI Russia president, said the beginning of rouble trading abroad is an important step towards the unit becoming a hard currency and a world reserve currency.

Evgeny Egerov, deputy chairman of the executive board at Investsberbank in Moscow, also pointed to wider benefits: «I believe the introduction of the Russian rouble on LavaFX will lead to the strengthening of our national currency and the strong development of Russian financial markets.»

The Russian government recently announced a target date of July 1 for a fully convertible rouble, which allows for global spot trading in the currency (FX Week, May 15).

Later this year, Lava will launch an interbank FX trading platform (FX Week, May 1).