I did some research on international currencies and reviewed FX transaction data from the Bank for International Settlements as of April 2022. The U.S. dollar dominates the market two months after Russia expanded its invasion of Ukraine.
figure 1: Share of foreign exchange trading volume in April for the specified survey year (2 in total), US dollar (inverted blue triangle), euro (inverted tan triangle), euro traditional currency (inverted open tan triangle), British pound (pink square), Japanese yen (green square), Chinese yuan (red square), Swiss franc (sky blue x). Source: Bank for International Settlements three-year survey.
What’s interesting is the amazing stability of the two major currencies, the dollar and the euro.
It's hard to see what's happening to “upstart” currencies like the yuan, so here are the details for the yuan, Swiss franc, and other currencies, the Australian and Canadian dollars (linear interpolation).
figure 2: Share of foreign exchange trading volume in April for the survey years indicated (2 in total), Swiss franc (sky blue), Canadian dollar (light green), Australian dollar (yellow-green) and Chinese yuan (red). Linear interpolation between survey years. Source: BIS Triennial Survey and author's calculations.
Note that these are OTC transactions for spot, forwards, swaps, etc. These are not denominated currency shares, nor are they SWIFT transaction shares.For more information on international currency stock trends, see this postal, Presentation slidesand future posts.
