CLS Group, a major foreign exchange settlement provider, published some of its key trading metrics for May, showing a jump in demand across all offered FX products. The platform offers services with FX spot, FX forward and FX swap instruments.

The average daily trading volume for the month came in at $1.798 trillion, which is only 1 percent higher than the previous month’s figure. However, when compared year-over-year, the trading demand in May surged by 21 percent. CLS reported $1.489 trillion as its average daily trading volume for May 2020.

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FX Demand Remains Strong

Additionally, CLS’s Global Head of Product, Keith Tippell, highlighted that the FX demand soared not only on average but also across each individual market. FX swaps remained the most traded instrument on CLS with $1.279 trillion in average daily traded volume. That was a 21 percent jump year-over-year, but it was only a marginal 0.6 percent month-over-month uptick.

Moreover, demand for FX forwards took a healthy annual leap of 18 percent, while the volume slumped when compared to the previous month. In absolute terms, the average daily trading volume with FX forwards remained the lowest with $88 billion.

FX spot demand again rallied upward on both yearly and monthly charts. The ADV for the instruments for May remained at $431 billion, compared to $416 billion in April 2021 and $388 billion in May of the previous year.

“Most major currency pairs were also up,” Tippell said. Indeed, trading with the top three currency pairs, EURUSD, USDJPY and USDCAD, were up by 11 percent, 20 percent and 29 percent, respectively, last month when compared to the trading figures generated in May 2020.

Meanwhile, the CLS Group strengthened its directors’ table with the appointment of Gottfried Leibbrandt and Shuta Okawara last month. The company’s board has now 21 directors.