Top banks plan new forex dealing platform: report

BANGALORE (Reuters) - The big global banks involved in currency trading plan a banks-only dealing system, in a move to reclaim lost business, the Wall Street Journal said, citing several people familiar with the situation.

The move marks an effort by leading banks to regain lost ground since access to EBS, the largest forex dealing system, was opened to hedge funds and other non-banking financial players like high frequency traders in 2005, the Journal said.

EBS is owned by Icap PLC , the interdealer broker.

The planned venture is tentatively named Pure FX and has the backing from most of the 10 largest banks in global foreign-exchange dealing, according to the paper.

But none of the banks involved in Pure FX is thought to be considering leaving EBS, whose FX prices are viewed as the industry benchmark, particularly in key currencies like the euro, dollar and yen, people told the paper.

The ten banks named by the Journal are Deutsche Bank AG , UBS AG , Barclays Capital Plc , Citigroup Inc , Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc , JPMorgan Chase & Co , HSBC Holdings Plc , Credit Suisse Group , Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley .

All the ten banks declined to comment to the Journal. None could immediately be reached for comment by Reuters.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Additional Reporting by Abhinav Sharma in Bangalore. Editing by Jane Merriman)