The Foreign Exchange Interbank Market

According to an April 2004 report by the Bank for International Settlements, the foreign exchange market has an average daily volume of close to $2,000 billion, making it the largest market in the world. Unlike most other exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade, the FX market is not a centralized market. In a centralized market, each transaction is recorded by price dealt and volume traded. There is usually one central place back to which all trades can be traced and there is often one specialist or market maker. The currency market, however, is a decentralized market. There isn't one "exchange" where every trade is recorded. Instead, each market maker records his or her own transactions and keeps it as proprietary information. The primary market makers who make bid and ask spreads in the currency market are the largest banks in the world. They deal with each other constantly either on behalf of themselves or their customers. This is why the market on which banks conduct transactions is called the interbank market.