In 2012, Icap separated its foreign exchange and fixed income electronic broking businesses. Three years on, EBS is being brought back together with the BrokerTec fixed income business.

It might seem like a retrograde step, but EBS BrokerTec chief executive Gil Mandelzis believes BrokerTec can benefit from all that has been learnt with EBS. He said: "At a superficial level, we are once again running these two businesses together. But we are also moving to a place we have never been before to create a very unique company."