CLS - more incredible figures

The more I check out CLS Bank, the more amazing it seems. You certainly can't complain about them not being upfront about it. They have a webpage where you can get monthly reports about the total volumes of trades, broken down into spot trades, outright forwards and FX swaps. But I was particularly interested in their Participation Data, also provided every month. The December 2011 version lists their clients as:

• 398 Banks
• 40 Corporates
• 82 Non-Bank Financials
• 14090 Funds

That's right. 14090 Funds, all going completely crazy changing trillions of euros worth of money from one currency to another every day. Their graph shows that the number of funds playing the FX game has gone through the roof since the beginning of 2007. It's completely ridiculous. And when you think that UK credit card owners typically get charged 2.75 or 2.99% everytime they pay in a foreign currency, you realize just how totally insane the whole system has become.