Global Foreign Exchange Business Picks Up

The average foreign exchange volume conducted by large corporate and financial institutions worldwide rose ‘slightly but significantly’ in 2002, at the same time interbank trading fell off, according to a study by Greenwich Associates. The firm noted that customer business, as opposed to interbank business, has become more important to the banks. Among the larger users globally, the average volume of foreign exchange trading by the same 716 institutions in 2001 and 2002 rose from $26.6 billion annually (all values shown are in U.S. dollars) to $28.2 billion. Among the largest of them, those that trade more than $10 billion annually, the average rose from $53 billion to $54.5 billion. By region, average forex volume is up sharply in continental Europe, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand; up slightly in Latin America, Asia, and the United States; and marginally down in the United Kingdom and Japan. The report also found that non-competitive trading was becoming more common, with 70 per cent of larger institutions conducting at least some of their foreign exchange trading on a non-competitive basis.

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