Japan FX Turnover Increases…Just

The Tokyo FX Committee has finally released its semi-annual FX turnover report for April 2025, showing that while activity in Japan’s currency markets grew on a year-on-year basis, the pace of growth was far below that reported by other centres.

Average daily volume (ADV) in Japan in April 2025 was $462.1 billion, just 2.8% higher than April 2024, and with the other six FX committees to report data in late July seeing an average of a 20% increase in turnover, growth is clearly lagging in the centre. All products saw increased activity on a year-on-year basis, and activity was 15.8% higher than the previous survey, taken in October 2024. Again though, the other centres saw six-monthly increases in the 20% range (with the exception of Canada, which only grew 2%).

Spot ADV in Japan in April 2025 was $134.1 billion per day, up 4.1% year-on-year, while outright forwards volume was $49.1 billion, up 7.9%. FX swaps SDV was $257.2, up just 0.7%, while FX options was $12.3 billion, up 2.8%.

Notably, looking ahead to the Bank for International Settlements’ Triennial Survey, due out in September, while the other centres saw significant increases compared to April 2022, the date of the last BIS report, in Japan it is actually lower. Total turnover in April 2022 in Japan was $478.5 billion, meaning activity was 11.1% lower – a stark contrast to findings elsewhere. It should be noted that in April 2022, the Bank of Japan was active in FX markets to stem the decline of the yen, nonetheless activity levels in spot are lower than 2020 and 2021, as well as, by 18.4%, compared to April 2022. Similarly, outright forward volumes in April 2022 were probably boosted by BoJ activity, but the 22.4% drop between survey months also reflects lower activity generally, with surveys taken in 2019, 2020 and 2021, all showing much busier markets.

FX swaps activity has grown across the survey months, by 11.2%, whereas FX options ADV has drifted by 3.9%.

While there was an increase in activity with financial institutions (by 5.4% to $414.9 billion per day), activity with non-financial counterparties dropped more than 15% to $47.2 billion per day. In spot, interbank volumes were flat at $79.6 billion per day (from $80 billion in April 2024), while other financial institutions traded $75.1 billion per day, up from $58.8 billion the year before.

Local transactions in Japan actually fell year-on-year, to $188.2 billion from 193.8 billion, falling in all products except forwards, while cross-border volumes rose to $273.9 billion from $255.7 billion, rising in all products.

With Hong Kong not reporting data due to the BIS survey being taken in the same month, if the percentage gain across the major FX centres is repeated in the BIS report (which does operate on a slightly different method to some of the semi-annual surveys), then the FX market is probably looking at average daily turnover of close to $9.6 trillion.