As the most authoritative and comprehensive gauge of over the counter (OTC) foreign exchange (FX) global activity, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Triennial FX Survey holds a wealth of information. With the April 2019 Triennial FX survey findings still being processed as of this writing, this report - the first in a series covering BIS FX survey topics - gives OTC FX market participants an opportunity to explore lesser known, topics related to the survey’s geographic coverage which hold a strategic value to determine how to allocate human and capital abroad.

Select questions addressed in this study include: 

• What portion of the world’s GDP and population is covered by this study?
• How has the study’s geographic footprint changed over the last six years?
• What countries represent the next frontier for the OTC FX industry and how much new business could this represent for the sell-side and fintech vendors?

Our findings identified 10 geographies not included in the BIS survey that, based on their 2017 GDP and external trade characteristics, could generate a meaningful level of FX activity. 

This report is aimed at senior FX market professionals who oversee FX activity globally or particular geographies for banks, fintech vendors, government regulators, and large corporations.

METHODOLOGY: 

Report insights originate from multiple sources: 

• Proprietary estimates. Our proprietary estimates encompass FX activity level by geography, with annual frequency to complement BIS triennial surveys and coverage gaps in BIS FX surveys and normalize semi-annual FX surveys by select central banks.
• BIS Triennial FX surveys participants. We tracked the SWIFT code activity of more than 1500 financial entities participating in the 2013 and 2019 BIS Triennial FX surveys to determine which of them maintained or ended participation over the six-year period evaluated for each reported jurisdiction.
• Macroeconomic trends. We evaluated World Bank 2017 GDP and trade statistics for 54 nations included in BIS Triennial FX surveys and for 56 nations not included in the same. We also incorporated select trade provenance data aggregated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 
• SWIFT payments data. We analyzed publicly available data of sent messages from particular jurisdictions on the SWIFT network over the 2012-to-2017 period, its disclosed FX activity levels, and generated our own estimates of the share of FX-related messages and their historical growth.