Best Asia FX derivatives exchange: SGX

Amid multiple market shocks, SGX registered record volumes, grew market share and extended its offering into cryptocurrency

Escalating trade and geopolitical tensions over the past 12 months have caused turmoil in global currency markets.

Amid heightened volatility and liquidity challenges, SGX registered record volumes and open interest in its listed FX derivatives contracts, extended its reach into cryptocurrency and launched a new Asian-hours contract that quickly captured market share.

In the 12 months from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026 daily average volume for SGX’s listed FX derivatives grew almost 24% to $22.8 billion.

“During periods of intense market stress, the priority for global investors shifts decisively toward operational safety, execution certainty and robust risk management,” says KC Lam, head of FX and digital assets derivatives at SGX Group. “The volume growth we saw over the review period reflects the value participants place on SGX’s secure, regulated infrastructure and our role as a trusted primary venue for price discovery and risk transfer when volatility spikes.”

The exchange’s international standing is illustrated by its USD/CNH contract being the second most exchange-traded FX derivatives contract in the world, while its INR/USD futures contract ranks eighth.

Both of these flagship contracts performed extremely well during recent market shocks. For instance, in April 2025, following the announcement of Liberation Day tariffs by US president Donald Trump, the USD/CNH contract registered a single day volume of $33.5 billion and a record daily average volume of $23.3 billion, while the INR/USD contract reached a record daily average volume of $3.8 billion.

In March 2026, when volatility peaked again because of the Middle East crisis, the exchange’s USD/CNH recorded a single-day volume of $44.8 billion. Record single-day volumes were also recorded in the exchange’s INR/USD and KRW/USD contracts.

Overall, heightened geopolitical volatility accounted for nine of the top 10 trading days by volume across SGX-listed FX derivatives. “The volume peaks we experienced during major global events demonstrate that our order books remain highly resilient, providing continuous, stable pricing that allows institutions to manage large-scale risk precisely,” says Lam.

As well as capturing record volumes in day trading, the exchange also experienced a significant uptick in open interest, with daily average open interest rising 10.2% between April 2025 and March 2026.

“Double-digit growth in open interest shows that global asset managers and hedge funds are committing long-term, strategic risk capital here rather than just day trading. It reflects deep, highly diversified liquidity that clients trust to hold risk overnight,” Lam says.

In the 12 months to March 2026, SGX captured offshore average open interest market shares of 84% in USD/CNH, 92% in INR/USD and 96% in KRW/USD futures. Its domination of non‑deliverable forward-style currencies extends to the TWD, and it is the only exchange to offer listed TWD futures with meaningful liquidity internationally.

A major venture for the exchange last year was partnering with Brazil’s stock exchange B3 to offer BRL/USD futures during Asian hours. Prior to the launch, liquidity was limited in the Asian time zone when the onshore Brazilian market was closed. Market adoption was swift, with SGX capturing a dominant 82% market share during Asian hours in June 2025, making SGX the most liquid venue for BRL futures in the Asian time zone.

Another significant move was the exchange’s launch of cryptocurrency perpetual futures in November 2025. This allows clients to trade bitcoin and ethereum with FX-grade execution quality across fiat and digital currency pairs.

“Our crypto perpetuals bring traditional exchange-cleared safety to digital assets. Institutional investors get the identical regulatory oversight, robust margining and default fund protections they expect when trading fiat currencies,” says Lam.

The launch was a natural extension of SGX’s FX franchise. Many crypto-native trading firms are already active participants in global currency markets, employing similar macro, relative-value and cross-asset trading strategies across FX and digital assets. This approach attracted crypto-native participants while unlocking cross-selling opportunities for FX clients, reinforcing the convergence between digital assets and traditional FX trading, the exchange said.

Beyond listed FX derivatives, SGX offers over-the-counter (OTC) FX products and platforms across the institutional trading lifecycle. Its integrated FX ecosystem comprises BidFX on the buy side, MaxxTrader for sell side and SGX CurrencyNode, its anonymous marketplace.

“Linking the execution capabilities of BidFX, MaxxTrader and SGX CurrencyNode with our liquid listed derivatives offers a complete, single-franchise FX ecosystem,” says Lam. “This helps clients seamlessly optimise execution across OTC and listed venues.”

SGX was named Best Asia FX derivatives exchange at the FX Markets Asia Awards 2026.

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