South Africa Tops New Deposits Index by FM Intelligence, Thailand Advances
A number of countries that you might not have expected are among the top ten for highest average FX deposits.

A new report from Finance Magnates Intelligence Department is showing an interesting comparison between established and new markets with regard to forex deposits. While more developed countries make up the majority of the top ten for deposits-per-GDP at FX brokerages, with six entries, some emerging markets have performed very strongly relative to their economy.
The top ten deposit sources for FX firms, normalized for the size of the national economy per capita, in descending order, are South Africa, Germany, France, Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Italy, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands. While the forex industry has been growing in markets across Africa (such as Nigeria), it is surprising that a country from that continent not only made it onto the list, but topped it.
Join the iFX EXPO Asia and discover your gateway to the Asian Markets
The nations of Western Europe remain a powerhouse for investments which is not unexpected considering the many firms that focus on the region, but the fact that Indonesia, Thailand and Saudi Arabia appear on the list highlights the popularity of forex in these markets – the reason that many firms are expanding to MENA and South East Asia.
Thailand in particular has been getting more and more focus from brokerages lately and is considered by many to be the next growth market. The country is a unique battleground where both Japanese and Western firms compete for traders’ attention. Our data shows that the most popular brokers in terms of online searches are SBI Securities, Z.com, GMO Click, FXCM, DMM and Saxo Bank.
Suggested articles
Viberate Teams Up with Blockparty to Deliver World’s First Live Event NFTGo to article >>
Working for you
The research and analysis work conducted for preparing this index was powered by the retention automation firm Cpattern.
This is the latest publication from the FM Traffic Indices – a new cross-industry benchmark created with a methodological formula that matriculates data from three main sources: insider information, our unique database and technological BI tools.
In today’s business world, big-data analysis and access to objective information sources are crucial to success. Unfortunately, until now it has been very difficult and costly, if possible at all, to find any reliable benchmarks for operations in social, FX and CFDs trading.
For this reason, the Finance Magnates Intelligence Department has launched a new project, creating a set of indices encompassing various aspects of the online trading industry. These indices will provide you with unique data points gathered by our analysts that will serve as a valuable knowledge base for your decision making.
Interesting article. Who would have thought that South Africa would top the list?
– John W Boyd
Quite interesting research ! It makes it more clear that the FX industry is mostly prevailed by EU and Japanese markets. The surprise is South Africa of course and needs further market analysis.
Thank you FM for sharing !
Haris Constantinou
@Michael Pearl: Where did you get the numbers for Germany from? 11,241.9 USD seems to be too high. Our clients (around 4k active) have a FTD of around 3,000 USD and some of them deposit more if the retention is good. So I come up with around 5k for a German client. I know of brokers that have way lower average deposits in Germany and I know some that have higher, but definetely not as high as your numbers.
´Sebastian
I agree Seb.
I personally want to know where Cpattern got their data from.
The numbers represent an average calculation, based on tens of transactions from several traders via different brokerages. The numbers are from September. However, previous months showed a similar pattern. We will continue to follow the numbers in next months and try to see whether this was a spike or an ongoing trend.
If you have any other questions, I’ll be happy to respond.