SG retains its title as 3rd largest global FX centre

It ranked behind the United Kingdom and the United States.

Singapore cemented its position as the third largest global foreign exchange (FX) centre after it posted a US$929b average daily trading volumes (ADTV) in April, representing a 45% increase from the same month in 2019.

According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the Lion City’s share of global FX volumes also rose to 9.5% in April 2022 from 7.7% in April 2019.

These figures helped the Lion City land behind the United Kingdom and the United States.

MAS said Singapore’s FX ADTV growth was “broad-based across the major currencies, led by the US dollar, Japanese yen and Euro which registered trading volume increases of between 39% and 50% from 2019 to 2022.”

“This was followed by the Chinese yuan and the Singapore dollar. Please refer to Table 1 in the Annex for the average daily trading volumes by currency,” the central bank said.

In terms of FX instruments, spot, forwards, and FX swaps were the biggest contributors; together accounting for more than 90% of Singapore’s turnover.

“The strong growth in FX volumes in the last three years is a direct outcome of concerted efforts by key FX industry players to set up electronic FX trading and matching engines in Singapore. This provides market participants with enhanced liquidity and robust FX execution capabilities. MAS will continue to work closely with the industry to deepen the e-FX ecosystem, to better serve growing interest by global market participants to execute FX trades in the Asian time zone,” Lim Cheng Khai, executive director of MAS’ Financial Markets Development Department, said.