CLS Settles Second Highest Spot FX Volume

CLS settled its second-highest volume of spot FX trades in August, as part of what was the third busiest month for the service since it started publishing data at the start of 2019.

For the second time – the first being March 2022, CLS says it settled $550 billion in spot volume, only March 2020 and the onset of the pandemic has been higher (at $707 billion). This represents a 9.1% gain on July, a rise that is underneath that of many of the platforms to report data, and is up 25.3% year-on-year.

Overall volume settled at CLS was $2.183 trillion, up 1.6% from July and up 14.8% year-on-year. As noted, this is the third highest volume ever behind March 2020 and the service’s busiest ever month, June 2024, when it settled $2.259 trillion.

The increase in spot activity was muted in both outright forwards and FX swaps, the former seeing $181 billion per day, down2.2% from July and also down, slightly, from August 2023’s $182 billion. FX swaps settlement volumes were also slightly down from July, by just $7 billion, to $1.452 trilllion – this represents a 14.8% year-on-year increase.