Regulators across the world are probing the role of banks in currency trading, apparently convinced it is the latest financial market to have been fiddled. Around 30 bank staff, including many trading-floor bosses, have been suspended or fired. Hefty fines seem inevitable. Worse, reforms may tear the heart out of the FX market as it is presently constituted. Banks, which make money by offering to buy or sell currencies from or to their clients, could go from being central actors to bit players. The future of a business which used to reap annual revenues of 20 billion is at stake.

Not that such bounty is attainable these days anyway, given the placid state of the market. Currency-trading volumes have slumped. That is largely because the world’s big central banks have replaced yo-yo-ing interest rates—which in turn determine the levels of their currency—with a uniform near-zero level since the financial crisis. The upshot is that floating exchange rates have seldom been so stable: volatility has plunged to its lowest level in two decades.

As a result, once-keen users of banks’ FX services have learned to do without them. Multinationals that might once have tried to hedge their foreign-currency exposures now opt to live with the risk, assuming that exchange-rate movements will remain within a limited range. Financial firms, which make up over 90% of trading volumes, have also pared back. Hedge funds that wager on currencies have shrunk or left the market in recent years. And banks, whose traders sometimes also bet on market moves, are no longer keen to do so. Appetite for risk is non-existent: “This is not a time to try something clever in FX,” says a trading boss in London.

Volatility will eventually come back—British holidaygoers may have noticed the value of the pound rising and falling this week—as the world’s biggest economies recover and interest rates move around more. But the tidy profits once made by banks may not. Much of the market for major currency pairs, such as dollar-euro or pound-yen, is now conducted electronically. Anyone wanting to exchange less than 100m is unlikely even to speak to a human being these days. The spreads on trades have become vanishingly thin. Even the profits to be made on making markets in more obscure emerging-market currencies, where spreads were once wider, have evaporated. High-frequency traders are moving in, too, hobbling banks.(Economist)

翻译：

全球的监管机构都在调查银行在货币交易中扮演的角色，显然他们认为这是又一个存在商业违规行为的金融市场。将近30名银行职员已经被停职或解雇了，其中包括许多交易大厅的老板。巨额罚款看来是不可避免的!更糟糕的是，改革可能会将外汇市场现在的核心业务分离出去。银行之前是通过向客户买卖外汇盈利的，但是改革之后它在外汇交易中可能将会由主角变为小角色。这个年收益200亿美元的差事儿已经岌岌可危。

在如今这样冷淡的市场环境下，要想获得如此可观的收益是很困难的。货币交易量已经大幅下滑，这主要是因为金融危机之后，全世界的各大央行开始推出统一的接近于零的低利率政策，而放弃了之前随市场波动的浮动利率政策—利率反过来又影响着汇率水平。结果是浮动的汇率出现了罕见的稳定状态：其波动率已经将至了20年来的最低水平。

这样一来，那些曾经喜欢在银行交易外汇的用户已经不再热衷于此了。假设汇率只在一个小范围内浮动，那些曾经忙于对冲外汇风险的跨国公司如今也不必为此头痛了。金融机构占据了90%的外汇交易，而现在交易量也下滑了。借助外汇进行投机的对冲基金近些年来也纷纷缩小规模或撤离市场了。对于银行，一些交易商以前经常进行市场投机，现在这些投机活动也很少了。市场已经不再偏好风险了;一个伦敦的交易大亨说：“现在不是在外汇市场上投机的好时机!”

汇率波动最终还是会恢复的--英国的度假者也许会注意到英镑在本周有所起伏--世界上最大的经济体会复苏，利率也会有更大范围的波动。但是过去银行的丰厚利润可能不复存在。主要货币组合大部分交易市场已经电子化，如美元-欧元、英镑-日元交易市场。现在，任何一个想兑换不足一亿美金外汇的交易商都不会把他的这笔交易告诉别人。交易商的利差将会逐渐缩小。即使是在无名的新兴货币市场，外汇交易的额外利润也会逐渐减少。高频交易商同时也在进军跛足的银行业。