Strong Start to 2024 for CLS
Posted by Colin Lambert. Last updated: February 19, 2024
It was a strong start to the year for CLS, which has reported its second highest average daily volume across FX products since March 2022.
CLS says overall volume handled by the settlement service was $2.093 trillion, up 6.4% from December and up 9.4% year-on-year. In spite of several platforms showing decent growth from December, the rise at CLS was exclusively driven by non-spot products, especially outright forwards.
Spot FX ADV was $498 billion, unchanged from December, but up 7.1% year-on-year. Earlier this month, EBS and LSEG FX reported a year-on-year drop in spot volumes of 11.9% and 6% respectively, however spot volumes at FXSpotStream (+10.2%), Euronext FX (+27%), Cboe FX (+6.3%), and 360T (+16.1%), all rose across the same period.
Outright forward volumes settled at CLS continue to remain strong at $204 billion per day. Since breaching the $200 billion mark in July 2023, CLS outright volumes have exhibited doubler-digit growth every month on an annual basis and this is no different. As well as being 13.3% higher than December, outright volumes at the settlement service provider were up an impressive 47.8% from January 2023.
FX swap volumes at CLS also rose after a December dip and at $1.391 trillion, are the third highest since CLS started reporting the data. This is a 7.9% increase from December and is up 6.2% year-on-year. Earlier this month, LSEG FX reported non-spot volumes that were 8.8% higher month-on-month and up 1.7% year-on-year, while 360T – the only other platform to report data, saw non-spot activity drop 13.9% from what are traditionally strong December numbers, but rise 8.3% year-on-year.