GFMA's FX division says wholesale market is not yet built for 24/7 and T0 settlement
The GFMA Global FX Division has published its October 2026 assessment of how wholesale FX must adapt to 24/7 operation, instant and T0 settlement, and settlement in digital money. It is a planning document, not a rule, but it names the operational and compliance gaps that stand between today's market and a tokenised one — and spells out what firms would have to change before any of it works at scale.
- The BIS 2025 Triennial Survey sized FX turnover at $9.6 trillion/day, up 28% from the 2022 survey, with wholesale FX settlement sized at over $14 trillion/day in the BIS June 2026 Quarterly Review.
- The GFXD identifies three 'no-regret' capabilities: improved data exchange across the trade lifecycle, reduced manual touchpoints and exception processing, and reduced system downtime where continuous operation is required.
- The paper states that KYC and sanctions screening will need to be performed earlier — before or at the point of execution — where they are currently run after execution.
- It flags that credit exposure must be measurable over weekends and 24/7, and that risk 'transforms' as nostro exposure shifts to digital money such as stablecoin reserves.
- It calls for public-sector engagement on settlement finality, supervisory divergence, the PFMIs and Global Code, local employment law, and the BIS PIE taskforce's work on a global value-date.