Pros
Barclays is trying to grow its footprint in North America. They have leading electronic platforms and have not put much effort into selling it globally or regionally until summer of 2007. In terms of cross selling platforms of Fixed Income, FX, Commodities, FX Options, Money Markets, and Futures the BARX has a very strong offering compared to other banks. I have reviewed and worked with the top 5 in the last 5 years. Barx is now pushing from the TOP Mgmt down to drive Emerging Markets Electronically. Resources and support from all different asset groups are very well coordinated and driven for success....more so than I have witnessed at DB or UBS. I view it more like a GS.
Cons
Old regime fighting change. The old school traders that are not embracing electronic trading are slowly losing out because their clients are going electronic with or without them. Second, BARX Upper Management is forcing them to support electronic trading. They expect the traditional sales guys to be working on cross products and structured products that are more profitable for 80% of their day. The day to day trades that can be done electronically they want moved over to the BARX platform as it is cheaper for the bank to process those trades electronically and frees up the time of the traditional voice sales coverage to work on structured trades.
