Forex Market Overview
The foreign exchange market is the largest trading market in the world, and it continues to grow. Approximately $4.0 trillion worth of currency was exchanged in 2010 on a daily basis, $817 billion of it in the United States.
There are two principal domestic Forex markets:
- International payments for business purposes comprise 80% of the market - about $3.2 trillion daily.
- Currency purchases for business or pleasure travel make up 20% of the market - about $800 billion daily.
Smaller businesses - often the clients or regional and community banks - comprise a surprisingly large proportion of the payments market:
- Small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) account for more than 97% of all U.S. importers/exporters - nearly 300,000 firms.
- SMEs account for over about $740 billion in U.S. imports/exports.
- The number of U.S. importing/exporting firms has more than tripled over a ten-year period.
- On-line bank usage by SMEs has increased by 100% over the past year.
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