BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey: US dollar retained its dominant currency status

The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) is out with its latest Triennial Central Bank Survey, with the following key highlights from its statistical release that concerns the FX turnover in April 2019.

“Trading in FX markets reached $6.6 trillion per day in April 2019, up from $5.1 trillion three years earlier. Growth of FX derivatives trading, especially in FX swaps, outpaced that of spot trading.

The US dollar retained its dominant currency status, being on one side of 88% of all trades. The share of trades with the euro on one side expanded somewhat, to 32%.

By contrast, the share of trades involving the Japanese yen fell some 5 percentage points, although the yen remained the third most actively traded currency (on one side of 17% of all trades).

As in previous surveys, currencies of emerging market economies (EMEs) again gained market share, reaching 25% of overall global turnover.

Turnover in the renminbi, however, grew only slightly faster than the aggregate market, and the renminbi did not climb further in the global rankings.

It remained the eighth most traded currency, with a share of 4.3%, ranking just after the Swiss franc.

FX trading with "other financial institutions", ie those other than reporting dealers, again exceeded inter-dealer trading volumes, reaching $3.6 trillion in April 2019, or 55% of global turnover. 

In April 2019, sales desks in five countries - the United Kingdom, the United States, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore and Japan - facilitated 79% of all foreign exchange trading.”