Average daily spot volumes last month climbed 5% from May to $137.6 billion. The increase in volumes has come as worries over eurozone debt intensified after the inconclusive first Greek general election in early May. That finally pushed EURUSD, the most actively traded currency pair on EBS, out of the tight range that had prevailed for the first few months of the year.
Indeed, before the eruption of eurozone tensions, volumes on EBS had slumped to a low for the year – and the second lowest on record – of $109.7 billion in April.
| EBS spot FX volumes $ billion |
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| Source: EBS |
The pick-up in EBS volumes for June has been reflected elsewhere, with CME Group also announcing an increase in FX activity earlier this week.
Still, volumes on EBS remain down 21% on a year-on-year basis.
EBS, which has previously blamed lower volumes in CHF and JPY on intervention activity from the Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan, respectively, says the year-on-year decline reflects "continuing uncertainty over developments in the eurozone and signs of slowdown in global growth".
Gil Mandelzis, who took over as chief executive of EBS in March, told EuromoneyFXNews last month the company is carrying out a comprehensive review of its business.
That came after a prolonged period of criticism from some liquidity providers that EBS trading rules create an unfair advantage to certain counterparties.
Mandelzis says a decision on what measures EBS will take to eradicate technology and latency arbitrage will be made by the end of July.