Mexican peso, among the 16 most traded currencies worldwide: BIS

The Mexican peso It ranked as one of the 16 most traded currencies in the world, even above the currencies of developed countries, and it was the third most traded currency among emerging economies. This was revealed by the XIII Triennial Survey on Trading Volumes in Foreign Currency Markets and Over-the-Counter Derivative Instruments applied by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

The Mexican currency has remained in that same position since 2019, despite the fact that it has lost trading volume and was surpassed since 2019 by the indian rupees in the preferences of the operators to carry out foreign exchange transactions via swaps and forwards.

The results of the aforementioned survey show that in April 2022, when the survey was carried out, 1.5% of global financial operations were transacted in Mexican pesos, a proportion that shows a moderation from the 1.7% that they represented in the year 2019 and which reached its peak in 2013. Precisely nine years ago, 2.5% of the globe’s foreign exchange operations were carried out in Mexican pesos.

Every three years the Bank of Mexico collaborates with the BIS to collect information on the operation in the foreign exchange markets around the world. And on this occasion, the Mexican central bank explained that to obtain the information, it used the data of the 20 financial institutions that report the largest exchange operation that, together, represents 94% of local activity.

The survey was conducted in April of this year and shows that the average daily trading volume in Mexican pesos was equivalent to 20.903 million dollars, which indicates a decrease of 1 percent compared to the volume traded in 2019.

Dollar is still king

According to the survey, global foreign exchange transactions reached a record high of $7.5 trillion per day in April this year; a volume that represents an increase of 14% from the previous record, from 2019, which was at 6.6 billion dollars.

In the detail of the information, the BIS experts highlighted that this higher volume of transactions was driven by spot operations, swaps and forwards.

The BIS experts highlighted that this increase in operations is the lowest recorded since the 2004 triennial survey. At the time of gathering the information released this morning, the market was immersed in the uncertainty caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of inflation.

The data showed that the United States dollar remained the most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, with 88% of the world’s trading volume, which is the same level it had since 2004.

The Euro remained the second most traded currency, although its share fell to 30.5% worldwide from 32.3% in 2019 and shows less preference since the peak of 2013, when it reached 33.4% of the total.

And the third most traded is the Japanese yen, with 16.3% of global operations, a proportion that also shows a significant drop from the 23% that it meant in 2013.