Interest rate derivatives (IRD) trading activity increased in the first half of 2025, driven by continued interest rate volatility, evolving central bank policy expectations and persistent macroeconomic uncertainty. Trading in index credit derivatives also rose, as market participants responded to a changing macroeconomic environment and sought to manage credit exposure. The year-on-year increase in reported notional for both IRD and credit derivatives was influenced by revised block and cap thresholds by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which took effect on October 7, 2024, and led to higher disclosed traded notional from the fourth quarter of 2024.

Key highlights for the first half of 2025, include:

• IRD traded notional increased by 48.6% to $249.4 trillion in the first half of 2025 from $167.8 trillion in the first half of 2024. Trade count rose by 27.5% to 1.7 million from 1.3 million over the same period.
• 68.9% of IRD traded notional had a tenor up to and including one year, 21.3% had a tenor between one and five years and 9.8% had a tenor over five years. Based on trade count, 18.1% of transactions had a tenor up to one year, 43.8% had a tenor between one and five years and 38.1% had a tenor over five years.
• Cleared transactions represented 86.6% of total IRD traded notional and 87.0% of trade count. 95.0% of fixed-for-floating interest rate swaps (IRS), 92.4% of forward rate agreements (FRA), 95.2% of overnight index swaps (OIS) and 12.7% of other IRD traded notional was cleared.
• IRD transactions executed on swap execution facilities (SEFs) accounted for 55.0% of total traded notional and 77.1% of trade count. 47.2% of fixed-for-floating IRS, 87.5% of FRA, 58.0% of OIS and 33.9% of other IRD traded notional was executed on SEFs.
• Index credit derivatives traded notional increased by 91.9% to $10.5 trillion in the first half of 2025 from $5.5 trillion in the first half of 2024. Trade count rose by 28.7% to 199.0 thousand from 154.6 thousand over the same period.
• Security-based credit derivatives traded notional grew by 3.0% to $364.3 billion in the first half of 2025 from $353.6 billion in the first half of 2024. Trade count fell by 9.1% to 103.7 thousand from 114.1 thousand over the same period.

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