Singapore Becomes The World's Fourth Largest Foreign Exchange Centre

A survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) showed the average daily FX turnover volume here was US$266 billion ($360 billion) in April this year, advanced than the US$242-billion turnover volume in the same period when the review was done in 2007, when Singapore ranked fifth.

The BIS survey this year listed Britain as the largest FX centre - which accounted for 36.7 per cent of all foreign exchange market turnovers.

The United States and Japan are placed second and third correspondingly, followed by Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Australia.

"Trading of rising market currencies including the Singapore dollar grew significantly," said Mr Ong Chong Tee, deputy managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).

"Financial institutions based in Singapore, serving the foreign exchange needs of their clients in the region and beyond, are well-placed to capitalize on this growth," he added in a statement.

For the month of April, MAS said standard daily turnover in over-the-counter interest rate derivatives was around US$78 billion. That is 37-per-cent higher than the US$57 billion recorded in April 2007.