OTC interest rate derivatives turnover in April 2025

Triennial Central Bank Survey

1. BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey

The BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey is the most comprehensive source of information on the size and structure of global over-the-counter (OTC) markets in foreign exchange (FX) and interest rate derivatives (IRD). The Survey aims to increase the transparency of OTC markets, and help central banks and market participants to monitor global financial markets.

Activity in FX markets has been surveyed every three years since 1986, and in OTC IRD markets since 1995. The Triennial Survey is coordinated by the BIS under the auspices of the Markets Committee (for the FX part) and the Committee on the Global Financial System (for the IRD part). It has been supported through the Data Gaps Initiative endorsed by the G20.

This statistical release concerns the IRD turnover part of the 2025 Triennial Survey that took place in April and involved central banks and other authorities in 52 jurisdictions.¹ They collected data from more than 1,100 banks and other dealers and reported national aggregates to the BIS for inclusion in global aggregates. Turnover data are reported by the sales desks of reporting dealers, regardless of where a trade is executed, and on an unconsolidated basis, ie including trades between related entities that are part of the same group.

The data are subject to revision. The final turnover data, as well as several articles that analyse them, will be released with the BIS Quarterly Review in December 2025. A separate survey on outstanding amounts as of June 2025 will be published in November 2025.²

2. Turnover in OTC interest rate derivatives markets

Turnover in OTC IRD markets averaged $7.9 trillion per day in April 2025 (Graph 1.A and Table 1).⁴ This represents a 59% increase from the $5.0 trillion per day of the previous Triennial Survey in April 2022, and a 22% rise compared with April 2019. Despite high volatility in key interest rate markets amid major trade policy uncertainty in early April 2025, turnover did not appear to be unusually high compared with previous and subsequent months or its longer-term trend.⁵

Turnover by currency

About half of the increase in global turnover was driven by euro-denominated contracts, for which turnover rose by a staggering 91% compared with the April 2022 Survey, to $3.0 trillion in April 2025 (Graph 1.A and Table 2).

At 38%, euro-denominated contracts commanded the largest share in global turnover, surpassing the US dollar in the OTC IRD market. Average daily turnover in dollar-denominated contracts grew only slightly by 7.2% since April 2022, to $2.4 trillion in 2025 – still significantly below the turnover observed in April 2019. As a result, the global share of dollar contracts dropped to 31% in April 2025, down from 46% in 2022. This stands in contrast to the market for exchange-traded derivatives (see column "XTD" in Table 2), where dollar contracts held the dominant share of 65% in global turnover. The much higher growth in turnover of exchange-traded dollar interest rate derivatives of 83% between April 2022 and April 2025 suggests that trading in dollar-denominated contracts moved from OTC to XTD markets.⁶

Contracts in other major currencies also saw notable increases in turnover of OTC interest rate derivatives (Table 2). Turnover in sterling and Japanese yen soared by 179% and 684%, respectively, and was responsible for a third of the growth in global turnover since 2022. Daily average turnover in sterling reached $939 billion (12% of global turnover) and that in the yen $411 billion (5.2% global share). As a result, the yen was the fourth most traded currency in OTC interest rate derivatives markets, overtaking the Australian dollar ($365 billion turnover and 4.7% global share) as well as the Canadian dollar ($96 billion in turnover and 1.2% global share).

As in the previous Triennial Survey in 2022, the South African rand was the most traded emerging market economy (EME) currency in the OTC interest rate derivatives market, followed by the Chinese renminbi. Turnover in rand grew considerably by 176% to $86 billion, pushing its global share to 1.1% in April 2025. Turnover in the renminbi doubled to $59 billion (0.75% global share) from April 2022.

Currencies in East Asia with substantial growth in turnover included the Thai baht ($114 billion in April 2025, 134% growth since 2022) and the Malaysian ringgit ($5.6 billion, 194% growth). Average daily turnover of contracts in the Singapore dollar ($18.5 billion, 20% growth) also increased. In contrast, turnover in other major East Asian currencies fell, including the Korean won (–43%, to $27 billion in April 2025), the Indian rupee (–7%, to $21.4 billion) and the Hong Kong dollar (–20%, to $8.7 billion).

Turnover for contracts in Latin American currencies saw significant growth as well. Turnover in contracts denominated in the Mexican peso rose to $29 billion in April 2025, from $22 billion in 2022. For the Chilean peso, turnover jumped by almost 200% to $12 billion in 2025 ($4.3 billion in 2022). The jump was even greater for contracts in Brazilian real, as turnover grew fivefold from 2022, to $9.2 billion.

For some central and eastern European currencies, turnover also increased significantly. Daily turnover in contracts denominated in Czech koruna grew to $44 billion in 2025, from $33 billion in 2022. Similarly, turnover of Polish zloty contracts doubled to $34 billion. Finally, turnover in Hungarian forint rose threefold from 2022, to $12 billion in 2025.

Turnover by instrument

Overnight index swaps (OIS) were by far the most traded instrument and the predominant driver of the growth in global turnover (Graph 1.B, Tables 1 and 4) and reached a global share of 65%. Turnover in OIS contracts grew by 146% to $5.1 trillion in April 2025, largely driven by euro-, sterling- and Japanese yen-denominated contracts. Other interest rate swaps commanded a global share of 24%, with their turnover declining somewhat from 2022, to $1.9 trillion.

Trading in forward rate agreements (FRAs) rebounded slightly to $617 billion, driven largely by euro-denominated contracts. Trading in US dollar-denominated FRAs virtually came to a halt, consistent with the phase-out of Libor as detailed in Huang and Todorov (2022).⁷ Trading in interest rate options picked up by 55%, but turnover remained relatively small at $245 billion (3% global share).

Turnover by counterparty

The shares of trading across counterparties changed little compared with the previous Triennial Survey in 2022. Some 77% of trades were between reporting dealers (the institutions reporting to the Triennial Survey) and other financial institutions (Graph 1.C and Table 3; note that counterparties in the BIS survey are the original counterparties to a trade before its potential novation to a CCP). The share of turnover between reporting dealers increased slightly to 21%, from 20% in 2022. The share of deals with non-financial customers remained relatively low at 2.3% in April 2025, similar to the 2.1% share in 2022.

Market-facing vs non-market-facing trades

The 2022 Survey introduced new dimensions to better identify "market-facing trades", ie deals with customers and other unrelated entities that contribute to price formation in the market. The 2025 Survey continues to break out "non-market-facing" trades, which consist of: (i) "back-to-back" trades (ie deals that automatically follow trades with customers to shift risk across sales desks); and (ii) compression trades (ie trades used by dealers to optimise their portfolios by replacing existing contracts with new ones to reduce notional amounts while keeping net exposures unchanged). In the 2022 and 2025 Surveys, these trades are separately reported as "of which" items (without breakdowns by counterparty sector or currency).

In total, non-market-facing trades amounted to $1.9 trillion, or 24% of the global OTC IRD turnover in 2025 (Table 2). This is up substantially from the 14% share observed in 2022. Across instruments, non-market-facing trades accounted for 25% of OIS turnover, 21% of other interest rate swaps and 20% of FRAs in the 2025 Survey (Graph 2).

Geographical distribution of turnover

Trading of OTC IRD continued to be highly concentrated in the United Kingdom and the United States, with a combined share in total trading of 73% in April 2025 (Table 5, "net-gross" basis).⁸ On the back of the surge in trading of euro-denominated contracts, the United Kingdom's share in total trading rose to 50% (up from 43% in 2022), while that of the United States fell to 24%, from 31% in 2022, reflecting subdued growth in turnover of dollar-denominated contracts (Graph 3).

Trading reported by sales desks in euro area countries grew by 95% to $1.2 trillion, increasing their share in the total to 14% in April 2025, up from 11% in April 2022. Within the euro area, Germany remained the location with the highest share in the total (7.5% in April 2025), followed by France (3.7%).

The share of trading in the major financial centres in Asia declined. Hong Kong SAR saw its share in total turnover drop to 1% in 2025, down from 5.8% in 2022, driven by both a decline in trading of Australian dollar and US dollar contracts. Singapore's share declined marginally to 2.4% in 2025 (from 2.8% in 2022) due to relatively slow growth in US dollar and Singapore dollar contracts, well below the growth of the overall OTC IRD market.

By contrast, Japan's share in total trading more than doubled to 2.0%, on the back of a remarkable increase in trading of Japanese yen-denominated contracts.

The share of trading in emerging market jurisdictions⁹ remained low at a combined 2% in 2025, despite a significant increase from 2022 (1.3% share).

Cross-border trading in global OTC IRD turnover has traditionally played an important role. The share of cross-border trading in the 2025 Triennial was slightly lower than in 2022, at 53% (across all counterparties), compared with 60% in the 2022 Survey (Table 2, "net-net" basis). More than half of all trades with reporting dealers (51%) as well as other non-financials (53%) were cross-border in April 2025, as were 73% of trades with non-financial counterparties.

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¹    Almost all jurisdictions have submitted at least partial data; final data will be published in the December BIS Quarterly Review.

²   The BIS semiannual OTC derivatives statistics, which capture outstanding amounts, are compiled with data from 12 jurisdictions and cover more than 90% of global outstanding positions. Every three years, additional data from all jurisdictions participating in the Triennial Survey in that year are included.

³    Figures on a "net-net" basis are corrected for local and cross-border inter-dealer double-counting. Figures on a "net-gross" basis are corrected for local inter-dealer double-counting only. 

⁴    All figures are expressed in US dollars. The modest appreciation of the US dollar between 2022 and 2025 will tend to understate the reported values in 2025 relative to those in 2022 (see turnover at constant exchange rates in Table 1). Growth was similar to that derived from other data sources such as the major central counterparties (CCPs), which process a large share of trades in OTC interest rate derivatives markets due to mandatory clearing requirements for most contracts. There are, however, some methodological differences as well as differences in coverage between the Triennial Survey and turnover reported by CCPs. These include uncleared derivatives, the treatment of non-market-facing trades and contracts denominated in emerging market currencies, which are more extensively covered in the Triennial Survey.

⁵   Higher-frequency data from CCPs suggests that turnover in April 2025 was close to its quarterly average, lower than in March and similar to June. Moreover, turnover reported by CCPs globally has been consistently trending upwards since the last Triennial Survey in 2022.

⁶   The December BIS Quarterly Review will contain a chapter with more detailed analysis.

⁷    W Huang and K Todorov, "The post-Libor world: a global view from the BIS derivatives statistics", BIS Quarterly Review, December 2022, pp 19–32.

⁸   The figures in Table 5 are on a "net-gross" basis, which corrects for double-counting of local (ie in the same country) inter-dealer positions but not for double-counting of cross-border inter-dealer positions.

⁹   This includes Argentina, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Brazil, Chile, China, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Czechia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates.