CLS Surges to New Peak

CLS has become the latest FX market player to report a new high in FX volumes, with the settlement service provider blowing through its previous high average daily traded volumes.

Overall ADV was $2.956 trillion across all FX products, up 10.5% on February and up 16.5% year-on-year. Within this, spot ADV was $746 billion, also a new high for the product, beating March 2020 and the onset of the pandemic. This is up 18% month-on-month and up 20.5% year-on-year.

Outright ADV was actually unchanged from February at $268 billion – this was also a new peak for CLS to-date – while rising 18.6% year-on-year. Completing the set, FX swaps activity also set a new high at $1.942 trillion per day, this is up 9.6% from February and up 14.7% year-on-year.

In what has been an undeniably strong start to the year for CLS, the service now has had its three busiest months in its history in the first three months of this year. This reflects the wider industry, for with only LSEG to report data, all venues with the exception of CME and EBS (which, like LSEG, have some very high numbers from 16-18 years ago), have hit a new high in March.