When the FX Global Code was released in London nearly one year ago, it offered up a set of principles to do with ethics, governance, the execution of trading contracts, the sharing of information, risk management, compliance, and the confirmation and settlement of orders.

To quote its wording precisely, the aim of the code was to "promote a robust, fair, liquid, open, and appropriately transparent market, in which a diverse set of market participants, supported by resilient infrastructure, are able to confidently and effectively transact at competitive prices that reflect available market information and in a manner that conforms to acceptable standards of behaviour." Or, to put this objective into layman's terms, the code was designed to make consumers - and especially HNW consumers - trust the FX market again and put the scandals of 2013 and 2014 behind them. Those scandals were so egregious that they inspired the UK's Financial Conduct Authority to levy £1.4 billion in fines and embark on its so-called FX Remediation Programme.

The code describes itself as 'voluntary' and adherence to its principles is growing. Major central banks have promised to link trading to adherence with the code and FX exchange committees in North America, Europe and APAC have linked their membership to adherence. At first people adopted the code slowly, but during this time the western half of Europe was struggling to comply with two major pieces of European Union legislation – MAR (the Market Abuse Regulation) and MiFID II (the second Markets in Financial Instruments Directive) – and their resources were finite.

However, only one year after the code's debut, its future seems assured. More than 100 companies have signed a statement of commitment to it. Depending on the measurements on which one relies, either all or most of the top 10 FX participants in the world and a large percentage of regional firms in Europe, the Asia Pacific region and the Americas have promised to obey it. By any measure, this is impressive support.

In some ways, the hard work is just beginning - these market participants will have to put the correct procedures, training, systems and resources in place - but the good news for banks in the EU is that none of this is revolutionary. MAR and MiFID II cover many of those same principles, especially the ones to do with market abuse, insider dealing and the surveillance of communications. Even the monitoring of behavioural anomalies should not create too much anguish for them.

Although the FX community has lived through painful times in terms of regulatory change in Europe over the past year, things are now looking up both in FX and in other compliance-related activities. Perhaps ironically, the massive focus on MIFID II and MAR has created a stronger foundation for FX Global Code compliance. This is certain to have a positive effect among FX market participants.