American Financial Exchange (AFX), an electronic exchange for direct lending and borrowing for American financial institutions, reports a record daily transaction volume of $1.889 billion across all its products on Tuesday, March 26.
Volumes increased from a daily average of $356 million in the first quarter of 2018 to $1.442 billion by March 26, 2019 – growing 400% since 2018. The number of members increased from 83 at the end of the first quarter 2018 to 137 by March 26, 2019, a sixty-five percent increase. Current AFX Membership is comprised of 115 banks and 22 non-banks with a presence in 49 states and Puerto Rico.
AFX membership also includes non-banks such as insurance companies, broker-dealers, private equity firms, corporations, hedge funds and money managers. Current AFX markets are overnight unsecured loans, 7-day secured loans, a deposits product, and a correspondent loan market. There are 557 banks in the correspondent bank lending program, bringing the total of AFX members to 694 institutions.
AFX facilitates the determination of AMERIBOR®, a transaction-based interest rate benchmark. The rate is calculated as the weighted average daily volume in the AFX overnight unsecured loan market. ServisFirst Bank in Birmingham, Alabama and Brookline Bank in Boston, Massachusetts are the first banks to index commercial loans to AMERIBOR®. Others AFX Members are also in the process of using AMERIBOR® to benchmark new issuance assets. AMERIBOR® enables banks and financial institutions to optimize asset-liability management by matching assets and liabilities through the benchmark AMERIBOR®. The rate is now available on Bloomberg terminals under the ticker symbol AMBOR.
