By James O’Connor and James Wackett of the Bank’s Foreign Exchange Division and Robert Zammit of the Bank’s Sterling Markets Division.
As part of its Market Intelligence programme, the Bank of England monitors developments in a range of financial markets, feeding information gathered from contacts into its monetary and financial stability policy processes. This intelligence provides the Bank with insights into a variety of rapidly evolving markets, including the foreign exchange market, where turnover has more than trebled over the past decade. This article draws on this intelligence, economic theory and market data to shed light on the role that non-bank participants — both financial and non-financial — play in the foreign exchange market.
The use of foreign exchange markets by non-banks