In the murky world of finance, where it can be hard to define what differentiates your products from a rival’s, a scoreboard that quantifies your relative position is to be treasured. The boasting rights earned from top positions on league tables are much coveted as competitors square up to each other. Clients rely on them to pick a provider from a host of banks offering them the services they need, and more.

So when JP Morgan's global head of rates and FX, Troy Rohrbaugh, announced in an internal email to staff and clients this month that the bank was no longer going to canvass clients for the annual Euromoney FX survey, the benchmark for foreign exchange, eyebrows were raised. His explanation was that it offered no tangible benefits to the bank's clients.