CLS Group, a major foreign exchange settlement provider, reported positive growth in trading activities in March across all offered forex instruments. The company posted an average daily traded volume of $1.977 trillion for the month, which is 1.8 percent higher than February’s numbers.

The increase in the demand can be seen across forward, swap, and spot FX markets, where the company is operating. The demand for FX swaps leaped the highest last month with around a 3 percent jump to $1.377 trillion from February’s $1.353 trillion. It was even higher than what the company recorded in March 2020 when the entire financial market saw extreme volatility due to the Coronavirus breakout.

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The forward and spot FX market also jumped higher by 2 percent each to $0.117 trillion and $0.483, respectively. However, the overall monthly figures remained lower than what the FX settlement provider reported a year ago.

Following the Industry Trend

“In the first quarter of 2021, we witnessed record average daily traded volumes of USD1.95 trillion, demonstrating a consistent increase of FX market activity year-on-year,” said Keith Tippell, CLS’s global head of product. “This was despite a 10% decrease in overall volumes in the month of March 2021 compared to the record highs in March 2020, driven by the extreme market volatility relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Tippell further elaborated that a significant portion of the FX demand was generated by two currency pairs, USD/JPY and USD/HKD, as both recorded a monthly uptick of 15 percent and 38 percent, respectively.

Meanwhile, the company is expanding its industry footprint with more and more partnerships. In the past few months, Capitolis and BGC Group tapped CLS to enhance their FX services.