Statistics on foreign exchange transactions
Statistics on foreign exchange transactions are based on daily turnover data from the foreign exchange market collected from the largest banks in the NOK market. The transaction figures submitted by reporting banks provide detailed information about counterparties, types of contracts and currency pairs.

Reporting banks
To ensure that the statistics provide an accurate picture of activity in the foreign exchange market, data from entire banking groups are reported, i.e. all foreign exchange transactions at subsidiary banks, branches and the parent bank.

Counterparty groups
Reports submitted to Norges Bank cover nine different counterparties to foreign exchange transactions. These are: other reporting banks, other foreign banks, Norwegian banks other than reporting banks, other Norwegian financial clients, oil companies, Norwegian non-financial clients excluding oil companies, foreign financial clients, foreign non-financial clients and Norges Bank.

In the tables, we have divided the counterparties into reporting banks, foreign banks, financial clients, non-financial clients, Norwegian clients, foreign clients and Norges Bank.

Financial clients: Norwegian banks other than reporting banks, other Norwegian financial clients and foreign financial clients
Non-financial clients: Norwegian non-financial clients excluding oil companies, foreign non-financial clients and oil companies
Norwegian clients: Norwegian banks other than reporting banks, other Norwegian financial clients, oil companies and Norwegian non-financial clients excluding oil companies
Foreign clients: other foreign financial clients and foreign non-financial clients

Instruments/contract types
In banks’ daily reports, instruments are divided by spot, forward, swap and options where forward and swap are divided into six different categories of maturity. Spot is defined as contracts with 2 days maturity. Forwards are reported by maturity: 0 to 1 day, 3 days to 3 months, 3 months to 6 months, 6 months to 12 months, 12 months to 2 years and over 2 years. Swaps are reported by the same maturities with the exception of the first category 0 to 2 days.

For swap transactions, only the long legs are reported. This reporting method is the same as in the “Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity” by the BIS and coincides with the market definition.