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I've just started learning about forex trading.

Forex brokers in Japan offer a system called "Swap Point".

In my understanding, this value is determined based on the difference between the interest rates of two currencies. For instance, in AUD/JPY trading, the interest rate in Australia is higher, so the "Swap Point" for buying is positive. This means that when you keep your AUD/JPY buy position longer than a day, you earn the amount of money specified by "Swap Point" per night. If this is a sell position or JPY/AUD, instead, the "Swap Point" works against you and the money will be taken away from your account.

If you choose your position in the right way, the longer you keep the position, the more money will be paid into your account, although the amount is usually much smaller than the profit earned by the currency differences.

Here's an example of IG's page about "Swap Point" in Japanese.

https://www.ig.com/jp/forex/swap-point

However, I've been struggling to find information about the same concept in English. For instance, IG doesn't have an equivalent page on their web site.

https://www.ig.com/uk/forex/swap-point (doesn't exist)

https://www.ig.com/us/forex/swap-point (doesn't exist)

There is a Wikipedia page about Currency Swap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_swap), but the description doesn't seem talking about what I described above (I'm not sure).

Does the "Swap Point" only exist in the Forex trading in Japan? Does it exist in the UK? If it does, what is it called? Where can I find the information?

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Why would you envisage that Swap Point wouldn't exist in forex trading in UK or in the matter anywhere else in the world.

Swap Points (forward pips) are the difference in interest rates between transaction currencies.

Swap point is a phenomena which will exist whenever you trade in a pair of currencies, because the factors affecting the interest rates in one country will have an effect in another country too, unless we are in an ideal world. The term you are searching for is an Interest Rate Swap, not sure IG allows IR swap trading for retail customers.

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  • Your citation, I think, is from this page, and in case you haven't noticed, it is a Japanese page written in English. Upon my question, IG confirmed that they do not use the term Swap Point in their English sites. Tom Next rate and Rollover rate seem preferred in English. Also, although in Japanese system it is clear what amount of Swap Point you receive or pay for a combination of currencies on a table provided, major brokers in the UK don't seem to share that information (at least IG confirmed me that), which sounds very strange to me.
    – Kouichi C. Nakamura
    Jan 21, 2020 at 14:48
  • @KouichiC.Nakamura That is for you to take it up with IG i.e why different terminology in different jurisdictions. So is the translation incorrect, is what you mean ? You mean swap point is something different ?
    – DumbCoder
    Jan 21, 2020 at 14:58
  • No, I think they're all the same thing, but called differently. But the way whatever that is called is treated is also apparently different between Japanese brokers and UK ones. I only started looking this up a few days ago, but the Tom Next or Rollover rate values are harder to find for UK brokers. I'm trying out 3 major Forex brokers' demo accounts for a few days, but I still can't find anything about this concept. It does not appear in the Current Position window. How do I know how much Swap Point I've earned or lost for an active position which I've been holding for a few days?
    – Kouichi C. Nakamura
    Jan 21, 2020 at 16:31
  • @KouichiC.Nakamura Don't you get a PnL column. It's been long since I used IG. I would likely assume taking the PnL and tracking back the profit would be a task, not easy but doable. Do you subscribe to their live data feed ? You can get the currency rates from there, I presume. I am taking a lot of assumptions here.
    – DumbCoder
    Jan 21, 2020 at 17:18
  • You mean the Profit/Loss column? Where can I find all the information I need to calculate Rollover rate/Tom Next rate, eg. the interest rate of the two currencies for a given day? I don't think it's easy, because they say they don't prepare that table. I even suspet they're trying to make this harder. For IG, I can get the Japanese version of such table, but there is no guarantee that the same table is used worldwide. No, I don't have Live Account yet, exactly because I can't find basic things in the Demo Accounts.
    – Kouichi C. Nakamura
    Jan 21, 2020 at 21:00

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