Last year, the daily average foreign exchange transaction amount of foreign exchange banks approached $70 billion, recording an all-time high.
According to the '2024 foreign exchange transaction trends of foreign exchange banks' announced by the Bank of Korea on the 21st, the daily average foreign exchange transaction volume, including spot foreign exchange and foreign exchange derivatives, was $68.96 billion last year, an increase of 4.6% (+$3.01 billion) compared to the previous year ($65.96 billion). This is the highest level on a daily average basis since the statistical revision in 2008.
The Bank of Korea explained that this is due to factors such as the scale of imports and exports, transactions related to residents' overseas securities investments and foreign investors' domestic securities investments, and increased demand for hedging foreign exchange risk due to rising exchange rates. In terms of the scale of imports and exports, it increased to $131.58 billion last year from $127.48 billion in the previous year.
Last year's settlement amount of foreign currency securities by domestic investors was $64.59 billion, which is 1.7 times that of 2023 ($38.26 billion). During the same period, the monthly average buying and selling amount of domestic securities by foreigners increased from 205 trillion won to 223 trillion won. The won-dollar exchange rate surged from an average of 1,305.9 won in 2023 to 1,364.4 won last year.
By product, the transaction volume of spot foreign exchange was $25.607 billion, which is a decrease of $130 million (-0.5%) compared to the previous year, while the transaction volume of foreign exchange derivatives increased by $3.14 billion (+7.8%) to $43.29 billion.
By bank, the transaction volume of domestic banks increased by $54 million (+1.8%) to $30.96 billion compared to the previous year. The transaction volume of foreign banks' branches increased by $247 million (+7.0%) to $38.01 billion.