THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF TRADETECH FX 2026
OTC FX AND FX FUTURES: A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN?
In 2025, it was a record-breaking year for our FX futures suite, with growth across almost every key metric like record open interest, the number of large open interest holders, new client adoption and positioning from asset managers. This growth story is underpinned by a range of catalysts, including potential balance sheet optimisation for banks, margin and tax efficiencies [ 1 ], and the removal of the need for ISDAs or bilateral credit lines to trade.
Absolute numbers illustrate the size of the market behind these records. Throughout 2025, over 1,000 firms were active in our FX futures market, with over $ 43 trillion cleared, more than 50 currency pairs supported, average daily volumes of $ 85.7 billion and a single day high of over $ 292 billion.[ 2 ]
The large majority of this activity is enabled by the robust and deep liquidity available in our central limit order book( CLOB), which is widely accepted to be a foundational source of market price discovery and risk transfer across a range of currencies, including all of the G7 pairs and the Mexican peso. Key developments have, however, taken place to further connect the futures CLOB to the OTC market, which are vital for the continuation of this growth trajectory.
Marrying the OTC market with FX futures As the FX futures market continues to grow, so does client demand to more
The FX futures market has long intrigued the traditional OTC trader, viewing it as an interesting parallel marketplace, but without a clear understanding about why or how they should participate in it. Yet over the last few years the growing trend of futures adoption has arguably become too big to ignore.
closely align it with the OTC market. Recent enhancements to our FX futures market include the addition of new currency pairs with SGD, THB and IDR added in 2025, and the provision of regionally relevant snapshots for daily valuations, including 4:00 pm London, 4:00 pm New York and 3:00 pm Tokyo time. Yet the ability to truly bridge the OTC and FX futures markets is arguably the most important development, and we have made a concerted effort on three key initiatives to achieve this.
EFRPs EFRPs [ 3 ] allow clients to trade in an OTC manner and lean on OTC liquidity while ultimately holding the risk as a centrally cleared FX futures contract. Two similar, but distinct workflows, exist: one that allows existing OTC trades to be backloaded or novated into futures, and a second that allows clients to trade on OTC liquidity but immediately hold the resulting position in FX futures.
Volumes in EFRPs grew + 197 % year-on-year, with activity in 2025 across over 30 currency pairs. Multiple banks now provide fully automated front-to-back workflows alongside“ high touch” voice workflows for clients preferring that mechanism.
FX Link and FX Spot + FX Link and FX Spot + are two“ on screen” marketplaces that directly and atomically link the OTC spot market with our FX futures market.
FX Link provides a firm, no-last-look price for FX swaps risk- with an OTC spot FX transaction as the near leg and FX futures as the far leg. This marketplace enables traders
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