As 2026 kicks off, the one matters of dialog seemingly contain stablecoins, blockchain, and AI. 2025 delivered loads of celebratory information on the regulatory entrance (GENIUS Act, MiCA), justifying the keenness market observers have for digital property.
Stablecoins are more and more seen as substitutes for fiat and crypto funds, with their capacity to bypass excessive transaction charges in focus.
Blockchain adoption, in the meantime, continues to develop. Safety use circumstances apart, interoperability is in focus as digital market infrastructure creeps into conventional markets. 2026 could possibly be the 12 months asset tokenisation positive factors floor and goes mainstream.
However what concerning the much less celebrated, but important, features of the FX markets? We surveyed 5 consultants for his or her takes on every part from regulation to swaps to market progress.
Right here’s what they reckon 2026 has in retailer for us.
John Crisp, Head of FX Knowledge Product & Technique at TraditionData, on alpha era, know-how adoption, digital workflows, and superior knowledge options
Companies will more and more look to make use of OTC movement and positioning knowledge to enrich worth knowledge of their seek for further alpha this 12 months. Companies will look to datasets corresponding to end-of-day place sizes and volumes of intraday buying and selling exercise damaged down by some segmentation, with that segmentation permitting for larger inference from the information.
Digital buying and selling in NDF, onshore, and frontier forex markets will proceed to evolve. This shift shall be pushed much less by new venue innovation and extra by advances in worth building by liquidity suppliers.
As pricing engines and the information that fuels them develop into extra sturdy, shopper workflows will evolve alongside a spectrum from RFQ towards RFS and streaming fashions, bettering execution effectivity whereas preserving management in less-liquid markets.
“As pricing engines and the information that fuels them develop into extra sturdy, shopper workflows will evolve alongside a spectrum from RFQ towards RFS and streaming fashions..”
John Crisp
There shall be extra nuance within the curation of liquidity. This shall be seen each in SOR (Good Order Routing) and in buying and selling venues providing extra customised liquidity swimming pools, serving to to cut back market impression. Latest advances in AI shall be a key enabler, permitting liquidity supplier choice to be dynamically tailor-made to execution aims, prevailing market situations, and the particular instrument being traded.
Esteban Mora, Group Chief Expertise Officer, 26 Levels GLOBAL Markets, on liquidity provisioning, analytics, and supervisor position evolution.
Liquidity pool curation will more and more prioritize the efficient economics of all buying and selling exercise over easy headline spreads this 12 months. This requires measuring not simply the price of entry, however the price of holding onto danger. The efficient unfold quantifies a dealer’s value of liquidity on the level of entry and should account for all fills, rejects, latency, and execution friction. Nevertheless, efficient unfold alone is inadequate. The mark-out decay of a liquidity pool can quantify post-execution worth drift and spotlight aggressive LP behaviours, corresponding to sub-optimal or predatory hedging.This interaction can reveal the true prices of executing inside any given liquidity pool. Tight spreads generated by overly aggressive skews could not essentially be within the favour of the dealer and should even be evaluated fastidiously.
Whereas they seem enticing, they might trigger the dealer to expertise hostile collection of trades, particularly in an aggregated surroundings. In sure contexts, a better efficient unfold with extra constancy to a impartial charge could present a extra environment friendly hedge. Nevertheless, managed skews can develop into invaluable in offsetting concentrated shopper movement, aligning inbound pricing with the true danger profile of shopper flows.
“In 2026, liquidity analytics will proceed to transition from a passive, post-trade reporting layer to a real-time management system.”
Esteban Mora
Curation, subsequently, revolves round optimizing each spreads and market impression. By closely segmenting LPs by decay-adjusted efficiency, brokers can determine impactful behaviours and prioritize liquidity suppliers who’re delivering an environment friendly switch of danger, a dynamic that 26 Levels totally helps. This not solely preserves the dealer’s P&L but in addition gives a secure partnership for the long run, quite than optimizing for the optics of top-of-book unfold.
In 2026, liquidity analytics will proceed to transition from a passive, post-trade reporting layer to a real-time management system. This requires an architectural leap past any batch-based programs, to a streaming analytic pipeline with a dwell, holistic view of liquidity efficiency. Successfully, we’re changing “analytics you have a look at” with “analytics that drive the machine.”
Critically for 26 Levels, this functionality has enabled event-driven automation. This enables for a motion away from guide tuning towards a system that may curate liquidity as danger and market situations shift in milliseconds.
This has a pure consequence of tightening the connection between analytics and execution. It turns into a closed suggestions loop the place knowledge is now not simply an output, however a direct enter for pricing and hedging engines.This will guarantee a constant high quality of liquidity, as each the dealer and the liquidity supplier can optimize with out delays in intervention. After all, a strong technological system is required for this profit to be totally realised.
When it comes to the evolution of the liquidity supervisor’s position in 2026, the pure subsequent step entails a transition away from an operational gatekeeper to a technical Product Proprietor of the liquidity stack. The supervisor should design the choice logic itself, quantifying and codifying what was beforehand a discretionary interpretation. This makes an attempt to seize the “artwork” of liquidity administration into express, repeatable steps.
This calls for a shift in the direction of an general system structure the place the supervisor turns into a translator between business technique and quantitative and technological growth. Whereas the system have to be versatile sufficient for strategic human override, the core goal is to drive increased profitability whereas decreasing every day operational burden.
The supervisor should outline the boundaries and permit the system to optimize dynamically inside them. Acceptable oversight and governance frameworks are important when deploying some of these automated processes. This, together with technical prowess, is an space the place corporations will set themselves aside in the long run.
The supervisor’s workflow can subsequently shift to proactive R&D over reactive tuning. As a system absorbs extra of the load, the supervisor can concentrate on managed experiments to additional iterate on the system’s logical and business design. This elevates the supervisor to the place of architect, repeatedly refining the dealer’s “edge”.
Rahul Gupta, Senior Director, FX Merchandise, CME Group, on what we will count on with OTC and listed FX markets evolving collectively
A confluence of catalysts, together with capital impacts for banks and margin impacts for buyside purchasers, has helped underpin continued progress within the adoption of FX futures; 2025 noticed all-time information when it comes to each the whole variety of giant open curiosity holders and in gross open asset supervisor positions.
Because the futures market continues to develop, so does shopper demand to extra readily join futures with the OTC market. Latest enhancements to CME Group’s FX futures market embrace the addition of latest forex pairs with SGD, THB, and IDR, all added in 2025, and the supply of regionally related snapshots for every day valuations, together with 4 pm London, 4 pm New York, and three pm Tokyo.
But the flexibility to actually bridge the OTC and FX futures markets is arguably an important space of growth, and CME Group has made a concerted effort to extra carefully align these markets by way of three key initiatives. Every of those represents areas the place we count on additional evolution all through 2026.
CME Group’s FX Spot+, its next-generation all-to-all spot market launched in 2025, allows seamless connectivity between the futures and OTC marketplaces, and permits spot merchants to entry futures liquidity and vice versa.
“Because the ecosystem for Spot+ continues to develop, this needs to be a really fascinating market to look at in 2026.”
Rahul Gupta
We have now prolonged the variety of forex pairs accessible to commerce and have made enhancements to the utmost order sizes to permit bigger orders on the again of shopper demand.
Because the ecosystem for Spot+ continues to develop, this needs to be a really fascinating market to look at in 2026 as conventional OTC members incorporate the two-fold advantages of with the ability to entry futures liquidity for the primary time, whereas additionally with the ability to distribute their OTC pricing to the whole thing of the futures market.
FX EFRP volumes nearly doubled year-on-year in 2025, with volumes up 97% and with exercise throughout ~30 forex pairs. As extra liquidity suppliers embrace and automate their assist of this workflow, we count on a continued enlargement of shopper adoption, thereby really evolving the FX market by permitting buyside purchasers to attain capital and margin efficiencies of central clearing while leaning on bilateral, relationship-based OTC pricing.
We’re additionally targeted on rising FX Hyperlink as a number one centralised venue for market members to handle spot to ahead foundation danger by way of cleared futures.
We see elevated demand for the answer from Financial institution STIR desks, because it acts as a novel, capital-efficient swaps order ebook that really separates liquidity from credit score, along with offering a instrument for members to optimise the margin related to their centrally-cleared futures and choices danger.
Peer Joost, CEO, DIGITEC, on the FX Swaps market in 2026
Throughout 2025, we noticed the FX Swaps market proceed to undertake digital buying and selling, with the vast majority of corporations making an attempt to automate giant components of their buying and selling workflows to extend pace and effectivity, and to scale their FX companies. We count on this to proceed in 2026, as purchasers look to commerce FX Swaps in additional currencies and tenors. Banks can solely assist these shopper calls for by implementing know-how options, the place workflows are automated in knowledge, pricing, distribution, and settlement. With out investing in know-how, these banks danger being changed by their rivals.
The FX Swaps market might be 15 years behind Spot in the usage of know-how, however it’s quickly evolving to a extra digital construction. The mixture of shopper demand for FX Swaps, advances in pricing know-how, and extra accessible knowledge has pushed volumes up, and we count on this progress to proceed in 2026.
During the last two years, some corporations have began emigrate from utilizing voice brokers to interdealer venues like 360T SUN and LSEG Forwards Matching. To automate these workflows, we developed D3 OMS, which allows FX Swaps merchants to effectively place and actively handle orders on interdealer venues.
“Advances within the interdealer market will movement right down to Financial institution-to-Shopper markets because the administration of FX Swaps danger improves.”
Peer Joost
We count on this migration to proceed and for interdealer volumes to extend in consequence, pushed partly by our pipeline of onboarding banks. These advances within the interdealer market will movement right down to Financial institution-to-Shopper markets because the administration of FX Swaps danger improves.
One other key theme for 2026 is the supply of extra knowledge. Pricing engines like D3 shortly assemble curves utilizing knowledge from many alternative sources. As interbank FX Swaps venues appeal to extra quantity, the ensuing core buying and selling knowledge will additional improve pricing accuracy.
Creating correct curves throughout all related forex pairs will more and more develop into the important thing differentiator for market makers to extend their P&L and win further enterprise.
Mattias Palm, Head of triReduce FX and Commodities, OSTTRA, on post-trade tendencies
In 2026, automation in post-trade FX will transfer past merely dashing up present steps and as an alternative concentrate on decreasing what number of steps are wanted within the first place. Probably the most significant change would be the wider adoption of workflow orchestration, the place affirmation, matching, settlement preparation, netting, and optimisation are managed as one steady course of quite than a collection of handoffs between programs.
Companies will more and more depend on automated routing that may resolve, in actual time, whether or not a commerce is finest dealt with bilaterally, by way of a netting service, or through clearing, the place accessible. This shall be notably necessary as portfolios develop into extra various and fewer centred on a single forex. Automation may also prolong to lifecycle occasions, corresponding to rollovers and amendments, which at the moment nonetheless generate a disproportionate quantity of guide work.
Crucially, these advances is not going to require wholesale system substitute. The main focus shall be on layering automation on high of present infrastructure, permitting corporations to modernise at a managed tempo whereas retaining operational danger in examine.
The most important bottlenecks in post-trade FX stay exceptions, fragmentation, and capital inefficiency. Even extremely automated desks nonetheless spend vital time resolving breaks brought on by inconsistent knowledge, late allocations, or mismatched settlement directions.
“In 2026, automation in post-trade FX will transfer past merely dashing up present steps and as an alternative concentrate on decreasing what number of steps are wanted within the first place.”
Mattias Palm
In 2026, these points will more and more be addressed by way of larger standardisation and centralisation. Utilizing widespread knowledge fashions and shared companies reduces the scope for disagreement between counterparties. On the similar time, portfolio-level instruments corresponding to netting, compression, and optimisation shall be used extra systematically to cut back the sheer variety of settlements and exposures corporations have to handle.
One other long-standing ache level is the mismatch between 24-hour FX buying and selling and once-a-day settlement cycles. Whereas this is not going to disappear in a single day, incremental progress towards extra versatile and, finally, close to real-time settlement fashions will ease liquidity pressures and scale back operational stress during times of volatility.
Knowledge will develop into the first management mechanism in post-trade FX. Reasonably than counting on end-of-day checks, corporations will use analytics to observe danger, settlement readiness, and operational well being repeatedly.
In sensible phrases, this implies utilizing historic and real-time knowledge to foretell the place breaks are prone to happen, flagging potential points earlier than they develop into expensive issues. For instance, analytics can spotlight counterparties or forex pairs that persistently generate exceptions, permitting corporations to handle root causes quite than repeatedly fixing signs.
Supervision may also develop into extra proactive. Managers can have clearer, less complicated dashboards displaying exposures, settlement standing, and liquidity utilization throughout the complete FX portfolio. This shift from reactive reporting to forward-looking perception shall be important as buying and selling volumes develop and portfolios develop into extra advanced.
Mattias Palm on general e-FX market tendencies this 12 months
Asia-Pacific will proceed to be a serious progress engine for e-FX in 2026. Markets corresponding to Singapore and Hong Kong profit from deep liquidity, sturdy regulatory engagement, and lively experimentation with new settlement and clearing fashions. India can be changing into extra vital as native market infrastructure develops and participation broadens.
In Europe, progress shall be pushed much less by new volumes and extra by structural change. Preparations for shorter settlement cycles and ongoing regulatory reform will push corporations to improve post-trade processes, rising demand for digital and automatic options.
The Americas will stay dominant in absolute phrases, however progress there may be prone to be extra incremental, targeted on optimisation and resilience quite than enlargement into solely new markets.
Frontier and rising markets will see regular, if uneven, progress in digital FX buying and selling. The important thing growth is not going to be a sudden surge in volumes, however improved entry and reliability. Extra trades shall be confirmed and settled electronically, decreasing reliance on guide processes that improve danger and price.
As confidence grows, these markets may also profit from higher danger administration instruments, together with fee versus fee mechanisms and portfolio optimisation companies that make it simpler for international corporations to take part with out taking up disproportionate operational danger.
Over time, it will assist deeper liquidity and extra constant pricing, even when these markets stay much less standardised than main forex pairs.
FX know-how hotspots are most probably to emerge the place regulation, market demand, and technical functionality intersect. These level to centres corresponding to London, Singapore, New York, and components of continental Europe.
Innovation in these hubs will concentrate on interoperability quite than disruption for its personal sake. New options shall be designed to work alongside present programs, enabling tokenised money, digital settlement property, and programmable workflows with out forcing corporations to desert confirmed infrastructure.
Finally, probably the most profitable improvements shall be those who quietly take away friction from the post-trade course of, decreasing value and danger with out including complexity. In a market as giant and interconnected as FX, progress will come from collaboration and integration, not from remoted, stand-alone options.