19The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has published its latest three-year central bank survey, which tracks global exchange activity in major markets.
According to the BIS, trading in the forex markets reached 6.6 trillion dollars a day in April 2019, a sharp increase compared to 5.1 trillion in 2016. The US dollar has maintained its more exchanged currency record, representing approximately 88% of all operations. The euro’s share rose slightly to 32%. On the contrary, the share of the Japanese yen fell by around -5%, although the Japanese currency remained the third most actively traded (17% of all operations), wrote the BIS.
Good news for emerging currencies. The BIT wrote that “as in previous surveys, the currencies of emerging market economies have again gained market share, reaching 25% of global turnover. The turnover of the Chinese renminbi, however, grew only slightly faster than the aggregate market and the renminbi did not rise further in the global rankings.
“The yuan remained the eighth most traded currency, with a 4.3% share, positioning itself immediately after the Swiss franc,” said the Basel institution.
The South African rand was ranked as the eighteenth most traded currency in the world, rising from the twentieth position three years ago. The rand represented 1.1% of the average daily turnover recorded in April 2019, up from 1.0% in 2016.
In the last 15 years, the rand has been used more and more in exchange operations, despite having ranked higher in the surveys of 2004 and 2007. In those years, the South Africa’s currency was ranked respectively in sixteenth and fifteenth position, but represented only 0.7% and 0.9% of the average daily turnover recorded in the same periods. The rand share is on a par with that of other emerging economies such as Russia, India, Brazil and Turkey.