Daily foreign exchange volumes in London, the world's main foreign exchange centre, were down 21 percent in October 2015 from a year earlier, to $2.15 trillion - the lowest turnover since October 2012, a semi-annual survey by the Bank of England showed on Monday.
Volumes were also down 13 percent in the six months to October 2015, as volatility in the currency markets waned in the second half of the year after witnessing a jump early in 2015 as the Swiss National Bank suddenly removed a cap on the Swiss franc against the euro in January. While daily average spot turnover fell 24 percent in the six months to October, to $737 billion per day, it was down 34 percent on the year. The survey noted a drop in volumes in currency swaps, options, forwards and non-deliverable forward segments.
The survey showed turnover in euro/dollar - the most liquid currency pair - fell 17 percent in the six months to October 2015 to $640.1 billion a day. Turnover in the euro/dollar pair had risen in the six months to April as the European Central Bank embarked on a 1 trillion euro asset buying programme in March 2015.
The divergence between monetary policy in the United States and other major economies, along with political risk stemming from the Greek debt crisis, had bolstered a recovery in trading in the euro over the past two years or so. Turnover in the Australian dollar rose 8 percent while in the Chinese yuan it was up 3 percent in the six months to October. The yuan/US dollar pair was the eighth most traded currency pair, the BoE survey showed, up from ninth position in the previous survey. Daily traded volumes in the US dollar/offshore Chinese yuan were at $44.4 billion, up from 43 billion in the six months to April 2015.