When Global Investor magazine asked institutional investors in March this year which bank provided the best range of FX services, Morgan Stanley took top honors. In August 2007, when the magazine posed the question this time to hedge funds, it got the same answer: Morgan Stanley, a distinction the Firm has held for the last four years.

In fact, out of 38 categories — 19 broken into two rankings — the Firm took top honors in 33. In the five others, Morgan Stanley ranked second. For Best FX Service Overall, which the magazine called "the most coveted," Morgan Stanley won 319 votes, or 44.9 percent of respondents, more than three times the total cast for the number-two bank, Goldman Sachs.

"The big investment banks have been best placed to benefit from this explosion in the use of FX, confirming the transformation of FX from being an afterthought in daily international financial transactions into a fully fledged asset class," the editors noted. "In fact, so much so that, for some investment banks, FX is now a core business that drives growth in their other business sectors."

Interestingly, one area that the editors called "crucial to the success of hedge funds, nowhere more so than in the FX area," was technology, where the Firm has been excelling.