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Dollar debt in FX swaps and forwards: huge, missing and growing

Author

Listed:
  • Claudio Borio
  • Robert N McCauley
  • Patrick McGuire

Abstract

FX swaps, forwards and currency swaps create forward dollar payment obligations that do not appear on balance sheets and are missing in standard debt statistics. Non-banks outside the United States owe as much as $25 trillion in such missing debt, up from $17 trillion in 2016. Non-US banks owe upwards of $35 trillion. Much of this debt is very short-term and the resulting rollover needs make for dollar funding squeezes. Policy responses to such squeezes include central bank swap lines that are set in a fog, with little information about the geographic distribution of the missing debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Claudio Borio & Robert N McCauley & Patrick McGuire, 2022. "Dollar debt in FX swaps and forwards: huge, missing and growing," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bis:bisqtr:2212h
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Anella Munro & Philip Wooldridge, 2011. "Motivations for swap-covered foreign currency borrowing," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Currency internationalisation: lessons from the global financial crisis and prospects for the future in Asia and the Pacific, volume 61, pages 19-56, Bank for International Settlements.
    2. Matthew R. McBrady & Sandra Mortal & Michael J. Schill, 2010. "Do Firms Believe in Interest Rate Parity?," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(4), pages 695-726.
    3. Ricardo Correa & Wenxin Du & Gordon Y. Liao, 2020. "U.S. Banks and Global Liquidity," NBER Working Papers 27491, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Claudio Borio & Robert Neil McCauley & Patrick McGuire & Vladyslav Sushko, 2016. "Covered interest parity lost: understanding the cross-currency basis," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    5. Claudio Borio & Robert Neil McCauley & Patrick McGuire, 2017. "FX swaps and forwards: missing global debt?," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Mathias Drehmann & Vladyslav Sushko, 2022. "The global foreign exchange market in a higher-volatility environment," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
    3. Bryan Hardy & Sonya Zhu, 2023. "Unpacking international banks' deposit funding," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    4. Julian Caballero & Alexis Maurin & Philip Wooldridge & Dora Xia, 2022. "The internationalisation of EME currency trading," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, December.
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    6. Jonas Becker & Maik Schmeling & Andreas Schrimpf, 2024. "Global Bank Lending and Exchange Rates," BIS Working Papers 1161, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Charles M. Kahn & Stephen F. Quinn & William Roberds, 2023. "The Fed and Its Shadow: A Historical View," Policy Hub, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, vol. 2023(6), pages 1-32, October.
    8. Orlov, Alexei G. & Sharma, Rajiv, 2024. "Which witch is which? Deconstructing the foreign exchange markets activity," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

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