Discriminatory Pricing of Over-the-Counter Derivatives

Download or read book Discriminatory Pricing of Over-the-Counter Derivatives written by Hau Harald and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New regulatory data reveal extensive price discrimination against non-financial clients in the FX derivatives market. The client at the 90th percentile pays an effective spread of 0.5%, while the bottom quarter incur transaction costs of less than 0.02%. Consistent with models of search frictions in over-the-counter markets, dealers charge higher spreads to less sophisticated clients. However, price discrimination is eliminated when clients trade through multi-dealer request-for-quote platforms. We also document that dealers extract rents from captive clients and market opacity, but only for contracts negotiated bilaterally with unsophisticated clients.