Daily foreign exchange turnover by Korean banks reached a seven-year high in 2015 due largely to proactive won-yuan transactions, the central bank said Thursday.

The daily FX turnover came to $48.43 billion last year, up 8 percent from the previous year's $44.84 billion, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The 2015 figure marks the highest since 2008 when the volume stood at $48.65 billion won, it noted.

"The growth was largely attributable to growth in trading between the won and foreign currencies, particularly China's yuan," the BOK said in a release. 

The daily trading volume of foreign exchange spots surged 16.8 percent on-year to $19.98 billion last year. Of them, the won-yuan exchanges came to $2.47 billion. Korea and China launched a direct exchange market for their currencies in December 2014.

The daily foreign exchange derivatives turnover also expanded 2.6 percent on-year to $28.46 billion, with that for currency forwards transactions gaining 6.7 percent to $8.26 billion and that for FX swaps inching up 1.7 percent to $19.18 billion, according to the BOK. (Yonhap)