[1] EBS was created by a partnership of large foreign exchange (FX) market making banks in 1990 to challenge Reuters' threatened monopoly in interbank spot foreign exchange and provide effective competition.
The decision by an FX trader whether to use EBS or LSEG Matching is driven largely by the availability of a required currency pair.
[citation needed] They were the first organisation to facilitate orderly black box or algorithmic trading in spot FX, through an application programming interface (API).
It has also increased the range of trading style to include RFQ and streaming in disclosed and non-disclosed environments.
[citation needed] EBS was acquired by ICAP, the world's largest inter-dealer broker, in June 2006.