Daily foreign exchange turnover by Korean banks hit a new quarterly high in the first three months of the year, partly due to an increase in non-deliverable forward (NDF) trading, the central bank said Monday.
The daily FX turnover came to $52.99 billion in the three months ended March 31, up $6.32 billion from the previous quarter, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).
The Q1 reading marks the highest level, replacing the previous quarterly high of $52.85 billion tallied in the first quarter of 2008, it added.
In the January-March period, the daily average of NDF trading came to $9.72 billion, spiking 39.3 percent from the average $6.98 billion in the previous quarter.
The daily trading volume of foreign exchange spots also surged 14.8 percent over the cited period to $21.35 billion in the first quarter.
Such a sharp rise was attributed to increased volatility in the won-dollar exchange rate.
The average gap between daily highs and daily lows of the won-dollar exchange rate came to 8.2 won in the first quarter, compared with 6.3 won in the previous quarter and the highest since 10.9 won posted in the second quarter of 2010, according to the BOK. (Yonhap)
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