Citibank, Chase Investment Bank, Deutsche Bank, and news and information provider Reuters plan a service which will enable customers to trade various currency products and access bank research over the Internet, bankers said on Monday.

The service will be compete with FX Alliance, a 13-bank venture unveiled in June. It is the latest example of the joint ventures which are emerging as banks' customers demand access to online currency services on one platform rather than using various proprietary ones.

The clients that both groups are targeting are watching the tussle for their money with a skeptical eye. "My initial reaction is that they are giving very few details, even about how the products will work," said Steve Nussey, vice president, dealing at BP Finance which transacts business worth more than $100 billion a year.

"We asked one of the banks involved (in the alliance between Chase, Citibank, Deutsche, and Reuters) what they had and we got told we will get back to you."

Citibank, Chase, Deutsche, and Reuters expect a version of the online service they are working on to go live early in 2001 but will not offer the full complement of products until early in the third quarter of the year, according to bankers.

FX Alliance is expected to go live later in 2000 or early in2001. Banks have increasingly moved currency products onto the Internet in recent years. A more recent trend has been towards joint ventures as customers have wanted access to such services on one platform rather than use various proprietary ones. Industry experts said there may be scope for two such multibank online services but the clients of the banks involved said only one would survive.

"We will look at both systems at make a choice - we will either go with one or the other and are only interested in accessing one dealing system," said Murray Gunn, foreign exchange risk manager at Edinburgh-based Standard Life, Europe's largest mutual insurer.

"Eventually there will just be one system as that is what clients want." Gunn said his firm transacted about $23 billion worth of foreign exchange business per year and dealt both with banks involved in FX all and those in the rival camp.

The clinching factor which will determine who wins is the keenness of the foreign exchange prices delivered by the rival systems. "Price is our top priority as we are obliged to do deals at the best price in the market," said Gunn at Standard Life.

Gunn said research and back office efficiencies were also important but for Nussey at BP Finance price was the overriding consideration. "The price will bethe most important thing," Nussey said.

-- (Reuters)