Institutional FX Volumes Jump in September as Fed and Bank of Japan Raise Rates

Spot trading on the four institutional FX venues tracked by FinanceMagnates.com rose by double digits in September. The Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised interest rates two days apart during the month.

FXSpotStream set an all-time high of $179.12 billion in average daily volume (ADV), while Euronext FX grew fastest, up 21.6% month-on-month. The gains reversed August, when three of the four venues reported lower daily averages as Cboe FX fell 8.7%.

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Taken together, spot ADV on the four venues reached about $268 billion, up 18.8% from $226 billion in August. That made September the busiest month since March, when a dollar rally pushed volumes to their 2026 high of about $291 billion a day.

FXSpotStream Passes Its March Peak

FXSpotStream, a multibank price-streaming service, reported total ADV of $179.12 billion across 22 trading sessions. That is 16.0% above August’s $154.42 billion and 43.0% above September 2025, for a monthly notional of roughly $3.94 trillion.

The previous record, $173.60 billion, was set in March. Spot ADV rose 20.1% to $129.51 billion, also a high for the venue, according to FXSpotStream‘s monthly figures. Non-spot products added 6.4% to $49.60 billion.

Dollar-Yen Leads the Gains on Cboe FX

Cboe FX matched $1.356 trillion in spot over the month, an ADV of $61.64 billion. That was 18.9% above August’s $51.82 billion, the venue’s weakest month of 2026, and 25.6% above a year earlier.

Among the five largest pairs on Cboe FX, dollar-yen grew fastest. USD/JPY averaged $7.89 billion a day, up 45.3% from August, and its share of Cboe FX flow rose to 12.8% from 10.5%. EUR/USD, still the biggest pair, gained 25.1% to $13.31 billion.

Yen trading had already carried the venue in July, when two intervention days accounted for much of the month’s activity. In September the busiest USD/JPY session was September 3, at $15.0 billion, when the yen jumped as traders raised bets on a BOJ rate increase, CNBC reported.

The Fed lifted its target range by a quarter point to 3.75%-4.00% on September 16, its first increase since 2023, in a 12-0 vote. Two days later the BOJ raised its policy rate to 1.25% in a 7-2 vote, and USD/JPY volume on Cboe FX reached $11.46 billion that day.

Euronext FX and 360T Add Double Digits

Euronext FX traded $759.00 billion, an ADV of $34.50 billion. That was 21.6% above August and 48.7% above September 2025, and the fifth-highest monthly average in the venue’s daily file, which goes back to January 2013.

The FX business has been growing inside Euronext for some time. In the first quarter of 2025, Euronext’s FX trading revenue rose about 30% from a year earlier.

Deutsche Börse’s 360T processed $930.11 billion in spot, with ADV of $42.28 billion. That was 12.4% above August and 21.2% above September 2025, when institutional volumes rose 12% as the dollar found a floor.

The venue has not returned to March’s $48.93 billion since volumes retreated from that peak in April. September also came in just below June’s $42.39 billion.

Tokyo Futures Pick Up Too

On the exchange side, the Tokyo Financial Exchange (TFX) reported 2,226,522 FX futures contracts on its Click 365 market. That was up 28.2% from August and 56.5% from a year earlier, with ADV of 101,206 contracts.

USD/JPY contracts rose 45.4% to 547,325. TRY/JPY remained the largest pair at 871,264 contracts, or 39.1% of the total.

September had 22 trading sessions, one more than August, so monthly totals rose more than daily averages.

On Cboe FX and 360T, the quietest day was September 7, the US Labor Day holiday. The busiest was September 30, the last session of the quarter, when Cboe FX matched $79.92 billion.

This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.