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The Bank of International Settlements (BIS), has released the latest 2013 Triennial Survey survey of global FX market volumes (the most authoritative survey of global FX market activity)

Headline items from the survey are:

• Global FX turnover was 34% higher in April 2013 than in April 2010, with average daily turnover of $5.345 trillion/day compared to $3.971 trillion/day

Daily FX volume by product ($ billions)

• FX Swaps continue to be most heavily traded product: FX Swaps accounted for 42% (down from 44% in 2010) of daily vol at $2.228 trillion/day, compared to Spot FX with 38% (down from 37%) at $2.046trillion/day

 Daily FX volume by Product (Pct)

• Non Bank Financial clients largest segment: Non-Bank financial segment was up 48% at $2.809 trillion/day ($1,900 trillion/day in 2010), and accounted for 53% of vols (up from 48% in 2010), whilst non-financial client volumes fell from $533 trillion/day in 2010 to $465 trillion/day a drop of some 13% over the period. Reporting Dealer volumes were up 34% at $2.709 trillion/day compared with $1.548 trillion/day in 2010, accounting for some 39% of daily volumes.

Daily FX volume by client segment ($ billions/day)

• Dealer to client volumes continues to exceed Dealer-Dealer volumes: Activity of reporting dealers with other financial institutions surpassed inter-dealer transactions back in 2009, (ie transactions between reporting dealers). Other Financial Institutions, a category that includes non-reporting banks, hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies and central banks. New data included for the first time, showed that Prime Brokerage accounted for 16% of Dealers flows, whilst retail flows (via retail aggregators or margin platforms accounted for only 3.5% of flows.

Daily FX volume by client segment ($ trillion/day)

• London remains top: London retained position as top global center with 41% of global volumes up from 37% in 2010, followed by NY with 18.9% up from 17.9%

Daily FX volume by Dealing location (Pct daily volumes)

• Top currencies: USD, EUR and JPY remain the top traded currencies (shares below based on 200 share – showing double sided nature of fx trade)
  USD (87 -up from 84.9 share)
  EUR (34.2 – down from 39.1 share)
  JPY (23 – up from 19 share)
  GBP (11.8 – down from 12.9 share)

• Top ten currency pairs:  EUR/USD, USD/JPY and GBP/USD, remain the top three traded currency pairs. Reflecting their new status, and the opening up of their markets, the Chinese Renminbi (a 260% increase over 2010) and Russian Ruble entered the top ten for the first time.

• NDF Currencies: NDFs account for just 2.4% of total daily volumes at some $127bn/day.

BIS data showing NDF volumes

Full BIS report here and summary of report with explanations here

Filed under: FX, Paul Blank, Survey Results |