The fate of bank bonuses has been of much discussion in 2025. Who will get more than last year? Who will get less? It’s hard to be certain – but there are some traders whose fate seems more certain.
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Foreign exchange (FX) salespeople & traders are likely to see a bumper year for bonuses. The reason for that is simple: they’ve had a fantastic year for revenues.
Data from market intelligence provider Tricumen suggests the average operating revenue generated by a FX & Local Markets full-time front-office employee in the first nine months of 2025 was $6.7m. That’s 70% higher than the $3.9m in revenues that Tricumen says front office FX professionals each generated on average last year.
Tricumen credited the excellent FX performance to the market’s strong volumes, hedging activities in “safe currencies”, and widening gaps between central bank rate policies between different currency issuers.
Traders on other desks fared less well. Tricumen estimated that commodities sales & trading people, for example, generated 21% less revenue per employee in the first nine months than they did in the first nine months of 2024.