The Canadian Foreign Exchange Committee (CFEC) has released its April semi-annual survey of the forex volumes in Canada on Tuesday. The report shows that volumes increased in almost all key areas, with Forex swaps seeing the biggest increase from the previous survey.
The CFEC releases two semi-annual reports each year, one in April and one in October. The most recent report was in October 2017. According to the statement, the purpose of the survey is to show the size and structure of the forex and forex derivatives markets in the country.
For traditional forex products, such as spot transactions and forex swaps, the monthly turnover for April was more than $2.28 trillion. On a daily average basis, total turnover was $ 94.9. This is an increase of 17.8 percent from October 2017.
On an average daily basis, spot transactions were up by 15.6 percent from October last year, coming in at $20.7 billion. Forex swaps volumes were $60.5 billion, a notable increase of 23.3 percent from the previous survey. Outright forwards, however, were unchanged - remaining at $13.6 billion.
Looking at foreign exchange derivatives (currency swaps and options), the total turnover was $168.8 billion in April 2018. The daily average turnover for derivatives was $6.9 billion, an increase of 3.1 percent from October’s results last year.
Currency Swaps Decline in Canada
The turnover for currency options also increased by 14 percent to reach $ 4.0 billion. However, currency swaps declined on a daily average basis by 9.4 percent to $2.9 billion.
When compared to April’s survey in 2017, the average daily turnover of traditional forex products increased by 18.8 percent to reach $94.9 billion. Forex derivatives also saw a growth in volumes. However, it was not as impressive as volumes were up 7.6 percent to $6.9 billion.
For the survey, the nine banks with the largest foreign exchange sales activity in Canada participate. Volumes are broken down by product, currency, counterparty, maturity and Execution method.
