Average daily volumes in the global FX market hit a record high in September, data from FX settlement system CLS showed on Tuesday.
The value of all transactions through the CLS system, which is used almost universally by the banking industry to process or settle trades, rose to $5.94 trillion a day last month, around a trillion higher on the month and in comparison to September a year ago.
The company said it was the highest average in its 12-year history. The average daily volume submitted to CLS, combining the settlement and aggregation services, was 1,419,102 up 37% from 1,035,978 in August.
Both Thomson Reuters and EBS, among the industry’s biggest trading venues, had already reported surges in volumes in the past month to reflect fully a recovery in market volatility fueled by geo-political events, the dollar’s surge and monetary policy divergence between the United States and Europe.
David Puth, CEO of CLS, said: “We have seen a significant increase in trading activity this month. September’s average daily value of USD5.94 trillion is up by a fifth from August 2014, and is the highest in CLS’s 12 year history.
“CLS also achieved another record last month, settling over two million FX instructions in one day for the first time in its history – worth in excess of USD10 trillion. 99% of these instructions were settled in just 45 minutes, which is a testament to the robustness of CLS’s recent technology upgrades.
“Despite the low volatility environment in the FX market for much of 2014, values settled in CLS have remained stable with an average daily settlement value for the year to date of over USD 5 trillion.”