The centre of gravity of forex trading is moving eastward, figures show.

Singapore is Asia’s largest centre for foreign exchange trading, and the third-largest in the world after London and New York, according to the 2016 Triennial Central Bank Survey of such markets by the Basel-headquartered Bank for International Settlements. Asian jurisdictions increased their share of forex dealing, while London's share declined, data showed.

In its report late last week, BIS, the organisation which publishes such data and acts as the forum for agreeing global capital standards, said the average daily trading volume of Singapore’s FX market was $517 billion in April 2016, up 35 per cent from April 2013. Singapore’s share of global FX volumes has grown to 7.9 per cent in 2016, from 5.7 per cent three years ago.

Meanwhile, a separate report by the Monetary Authority of Singapore said the expansion of Singapore’s forex market was chiefly driven by growth in G10 and Asian currencies such as the Chinese renminbi (up 78 per cent); Japanese yen (up 67 per cent), sterling (up 60 per cent), and South Korean won (up 55 per cent). Foreign exchange swaps made up the largest traded foreign exchange product class in Singapore and accounted for 48 per cent of all trades, followed by spot transactions (24 per cent) and FX forwards (20 per cent).

Trading continues to be concentrated in the largest financial centres. In April 2016, sales desks in five countries - the UK, the US, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan – intermediated 77 per cent of all foreign exchange trading, BIS said.

The share of foreign exchange trading taking place in the US in 2016 was virtually unchanged relative to the previous survey, at 19 per cent. Asian financial centres, namely Tokyo, Hong Kong SAR and Singapore, increased their combined share of intermediation to 21 per cent, from 15 per cent.

The share of foreign exchange trading in the UK declined to 37 per cent in April 2016, from 41 per cent. The decline was broad-based across currency pairs. The market share of the euro area continued to decline, falling to 8 per cent in April 2016 from 9 per cent in 2013, although France maintained its 3 per cent share.

The trend decline in the share of trading activity taking place in Switzerland and Australia also continued to decline, to 2 per cent in each country in 2016 compared with 3 per cent in 2013.