London Remains Forex Capital

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- London has remained easily the number one center for foreign-exchange trading, with daily turnover in traditional foreign-exchange products growing 32% between October and April to total $1.683 trillion, half-yearly surveys showed Monday.

London's total compares with average daily turnover of $680.6 billion in traditional foreign-exchange products in New York.

The U.K.'s Foreign-Exchange Joint Standing Committee also said daily turnover in over-the-counter currency derivative products grew 18% to total $136 billion, up from $115 billion in October.

As such, daily transactions for all currency products totaled $1.819 trillion in the U.K., which was up 31% on October and 54% on the year. That compares with $715 billion in total daily transactions in New York, which was 15.7% higher from April 2007.

The surveys said 79% of all London currency transactions involved the U.S. dollar, down from 84% in October. Transactions involving the euro fell to 41% from 45% in the last survey.

Both the U.K. and U.S. surveys are conducted with large financial institutions active in the foreign-exchange market.

The U.S. Foreign-Exchange Committee, supported by the New York Federal Reserve, said more than half of the U.S. total in April, about $393 billion, came from daily spot transactions, while another $194 billion came from foreign-exchange swap options.

By contrast, only 31% of the total U.K. daily turnover came from spot transactions, with foreign-exchange swaps making up 51%.

The Canadian Foreign-Exchange Committee, through the Bank of Canada, released its own report, saying its daily trading volumes in traditional foreign-exchange products totaled $63.6 billion, a 19% rise from a year earlier.

Total transactions, including over-the-counter derivatives, reached $66.3 billion, up 1.8% on the year.

Meanwhile, the Australian Foreign-Exchange Committee reported that the daily turn over in currency volumes was $157.5 billion in April 2008. This was an increase of 5% from October 2007, but a decline of 4% over the year.