NEW YORK, July 13 (Reuters) - Large companies are spreading out their counterparty risk and increasing screening of their banking partners in response to the recent banking crisis that has been a "wake-up call", according to an industry survey to be released on Thursday. Multinational companies and those with sales overseas use banks, or counterparties to the transactions, to trade foreign exchange and hedge currency risk. "All of a sudden there's a wake-up call," said Eric Huttman, CEO at MillTechFX, the specialist currency arm of Millennium Global. Huttman said his firm has added dozens of clients since the banking crisis and all of them have spent more time asking about its counterparty selection process. "The broad questions that companies are asking are, is my banking partner sound and will they be there when I need them," said Dhargalkar.

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Persons: Eric Huttman, Huttman, Amol Dhargalkar, Banks, Laura Matthews, Megan Davies, Muralikumar Organizations: YORK, MillTechFX, Millennium, UBS, Credit Suisse, Chatham Financial, Thomson Locations: North America, Europe, Swiss