I was fascinated to see an update on how CLS, the
Continuous Linked Settlement system for FX, has progressed.
CLS
was founded in 1997 to eliminate settlement risk in the foreign
exchange markets and now handles fifteen currencies: the US Dollar, the
Euro, UK Sterling, Japanese Yen, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar,
Australian Dollar, Swedish Krona, Danish Krone, Norwegian Krone, the
Singapore Dollar, the Hong Kong Dollar, the New Zealand Dollar, the
Korean Won and the South African Rand. Two more are coming on stream
in 2008 with the addition of the Mexican Peso and the Israeli Shekel.
CLS
is now handling over $3.8 trillion daily peaking at $8.4 trillion
representing an average 492,000 instructions per day peaking at over
1,140,644 payment instructions last week on 13th November, the day
after Veteran's day in the USA. This is the first time CLS has
processed more than a million instructions in a day, and is 235,166
more instructions than the previous peak record of 905,478.
CLS processes 55% of all foreign exchange transactions and links to 285 banks, 1693 fund accounts, 49 brokers and 21 corporates.
For
a full analysis of the onwards and upwards march of CLS, read a recent
report from July 2007 published by the Bank for International
Settlements: "Progress in reducing foreign exchange settlement risk".
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
