The Bank for International Settlements has published a Quarterly Review article drawing on the April 2025 Triennial Survey of foreign exchange markets and introducing a new methodology that classifies trades by settlement method to measure FX settlement risk. The survey shows that more than USD 14 trillion of gross financial obligations were settled on an average day in April 2025, with 36% settled through payment versus payment systems that eliminate settlement risk, 54% through methods that mitigate but do not eliminate it, and 10% or USD 1.4 trillion settled on a gross bilateral basis with full exposure to settlement risk. The article says this gives a more targeted view of where risk remains, even though overall progress has been made since a comparable 2006 survey. The more detailed data show that USD 347 billion of gross bilateral settlement each day was already eligible for payment versus payment settlement, implying risk could in principle have been eliminated for that portion. For the remaining non-eligible trades, the main reasons were lack of direct or indirect access to payment versus payment systems by the counterparty, cited for 57% of such trades, currency pair ineligibility for 36%, and trade type ineligibility for 37%, with categories overlapping. The survey also found that pre-settlement netting covered 15% of total settlement and reduced around USD 2.2 trillion of daily obligations to USD 337 billion to be settled by other means, while settlement fails were limited at 0.01% of total gross obligations. Compared with the 2006 CPSS survey on a comparable basis excluding intragroup settlement, the share of gross bilateral settlement fell from 32% to 15%, with the BIS attributing much of the reduction to wider use of pre-settlement netting rather than a large increase in payment versus payment use. The article says further work is still needed to reduce risk by increasing use of payment versus payment for already eligible trades, expanding access and currency coverage, incorporating shorter-settlement-cycle trades and promoting greater use of bilateral netting. It also notes that the Global Foreign Exchange Committee will continue collecting semiannual data using the same methodology, while the Committee on Payments and Market Infrastructures is continuing work with industry on operational barriers to broader payment versus payment adoption.
Bank for International Settlements2026-06-15
Bank for International Settlements publishes 2025 FX settlement risk survey showing USD 1.4 trillion a day remains fully exposed
The Bank for International Settlements has published new FX settlement risk measures from the 2025 Triennial Survey, showing that 10% of average daily FX settlement in April 2025, or USD 1.4 trillion, remained fully exposed through gross bilateral settlement. Another 36% settled through payment versus payment systems and 54% through methods that mitigate but do not eliminate risk. The main reasons for remaining gross bilateral settlement were lack of payment versus payment access, ineligible currency pairs and ineligible trade types.