CLS FX Volumes Rise Across the Board

CLS has reported its fifth highest average daily volume and the third highest this year, with the settlement service handling $2,058 trillion per day in September.

This represents a month-on-month rise of 8.3% and in contrast to many of the platforms to report data, it is also up year-on-year, albeit by just 1%. Spot volumes were strong at $495 billion – the second highest thus far in 2023 – this is up 12.8% month-on-month, but down 8.5% year-on-year. This largely reflects the data from the spot platforms.

Outright forward activity continues to grow steadily for the settlement service, hitting its second highest level to date at $209 billion per day. This is up 14.8% from August, as well as up 51.5% year-on-year and is the second time the service has breached the $200 billion per day threshold, the first time being in July.

Finally from CLS, FX swaps activity was $1.354 trillion per day in September. This is broadly unchanged year-on-year (down just $4 billion per day), but is up on August by 5.8%. Earlier this month, 360T reported a similar result for its FX swaps business, rising some 23% month-on-month and unchanged year-on-year. LSEG FX, the other main FX swaps platform, is yet to report September data.