The CLS settlement system has reported an +5.7% increase in the average daily value of FX trades settled through their platform in Mar 15, taking volumes back up to $5,150bln/day.
The monthly increase being far lower than that reported last week by the major FX spot platforms which saw increases ranging from 15% to 22% for the major platforms.
Details from the platform and charts are as follows:
CLS value of instructions submitted: $5,150bln/day, up +5.7% on the $4,870bln/day in Feb 15, and down -3.7% compared to Mar 14.
CLS number of instructions submitted: 1,336,042 was up +12.7% on the 1,185,696 in Feb 15, and some +15.6% up on Mar14 level of 1,155,507.
Average Trade size: $3.86mln was down -6.1% on the $4.1mln in Feb 15 and down -16.7% compared to the $4.63mln in Mar 14.
David Puth, CEO of CLS, commented:
“March was a month of increased activity for CLS. Average daily volumes increased by 12.7% over the prior month, while daily input values surpassed the USD5 trillion mark, up by 5.7% when compared to February.
“This completes a very active first quarter that was highlighted by the unprecedented move by the Swiss National Bank on 15 January. During the quarter, the US dollar also rose by more than 10% against major European currencies leading to higher trading volumes overall.”
CLS Data: Value and number of transactions submitted to CLS in Mar 2015
Note: CLS reports both sides of an FX transaction. To adjust the average daily value data to equate to the same reporting convention used by the Bank for International Settlements and the semi-annual foreign exchange committee market reports, the gross values should be divided by two.
