Turnover - April 2022

In April 2022 the Bank of Italy conducted its regular triennial survey on the volume of transactions carried out by the major resident banks in the foreign exchange and in the over-the-counter (OTC) currency and interest rate derivatives markets. The survey was performed by 52 central banks and monetary authorities and was coordinated by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

Today, the Bank of Italy releases the national results, while the BIS is publishing its own preliminary global findings (https://www.bis.org/statistics/rpfx22.htm).

The Italian survey was conducted on a sample of 21 banks. According to the information contained in the supervisory reports transmitted to the Bank of Italy, these banks account for about 97.5 per cent of the value of the transactions done in the OTC foreign exchange and derivatives markets, a share similar to that reported in 2019. The survey looks at the value, in terms of nominal and notional amounts, expressed in dollar equivalent, of the new contracts signed in April 2022. The survey results are expanded to the entire Italian market. Based on the common methodology defined by the BIS, no corrections are made to the data, for example to take into account the change in exchange rates between the two periods or inflation. Furthermore, in the tables published here, no correction is made for the number of working days (equal to 20 and 19, respectively in April 2019 and April 2022).

In Italy, in April 2022 the turnover in foreign exchange and OTC currency derivatives amounted to almost $380 billion (Table 1), just below that recorded in the previous survey conducted in April 2019 ($385 billion). The trading volume of interest rate derivatives increased from $261 billion to $417 billion. In the foreign exchange and currency derivatives market, the dollar remains the reference currency, with transactions amounting to $198 billion.

As regards the type of instrument, in Italy the foreign exchange swap remains that most widely used on the foreign exchange and currency derivatives market ($261 billion; Table 2). With reference to interest rate derivatives, there is a greater use of forward rate agreements compared to April 2019 ($147 billion, compared to $25 billion in April 2019; Table 3).

The results by type of counterparty show that most of the transactions are carried out with non-resident banks (for a turnover of $314 and $291 billion in the foreign exchange and currency derivatives and interest rate derivatives markets, respectively; Table 4).