Citi narrowly tops annual FX traders ranking

By Patrick Graham

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. bank Citi held on to top spot in the foreign exchange industry's main annual ranking of traders by volume on Wednesday despite losing around 2 percent in market share, results showed.

The survey by financial publishers Euromoney showed overall market share among the top five banks in the $5 trillion a day market falling to 41 percent from just under 45 percent a year ago.

JP Morgan was again placed second in overall market share, followed by Swiss bank UBS in third. Deutsche Bank fell again, to fifth, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch climbed to fourth.

Euromoney's annual poll, watched closely by participants in the world's biggest financial market, has traditionally been dominated by the big banks. In 2009 the top five banks commanded a 61.5 percent share and the top 10 close to 80 percent.

While the top ten players in Wednesday's survey were again all lenders - displacing non-bank liquidity provider XTX Markets - the spread of market share was far more even than in previous years.

Citi's share fell from 12.93 percent a year ago to 10.74 percent while Deutsche's fell sharply for a second year - to 5.68 percent from 7.88 percent.

Euromoney said there were now seven non-bank providers in the top 50.

(Reporting by Patrick Graham; Editing by Hugh Lawson and John Stonestreet)