By leveraging Broadridge’s Securities Finance and Collateral Management (SFCM) solution, FAB will be able to bolster its coverage of global fixed income and equities markets.

The development comes as part of the bank’s drive to expand securities lending in the UAE and wider Middle East.

“This collaboration caters for the growing demand for securities lending and borrowing within the Middle East and is aligned both with local regulatory needs and with international best practices,” said Darren Crowther, head of securities finance and collateral management at Broadridge. 

Broadridge’s provision of its SFCM platform — the first AWS SaaS deployment in the region — demonstrates a renewed focus in the Middle East and indicates readiness to support FAB’s strategic goals, the firm said in a statement.

As FAB navigates the evolving landscape of securities borrowing and lending regulations in the region’s markets.

The collaboration is also expected to yield new opportunities and efficiencies for FAB that will benefit clients across the globe – particularly as it navigates the evolving landscape of securities borrowing and lending regulations in the region’s markets.

The post Broadridge tapped by First Abu Dhabi Bank to build global agency securities finance business appeared first on The TRADE.

The new office, which is three times larger than its existing facility, will bring the company closer to its clients, with the aim to better deliver services across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The office is located in Central Park Towers and will act as a strategic hub for TP ICAP’s business operations across the region. In addition, the new location will bring together key brands under the Group umbrella, including ICAP, Tullett Prebon, PVM, Parameta Solutions, and COEX.

The expansion will enable clients to access TP ICAP’s market data and broking solutions, backed by a strong local presence.

The regional hub was developed to address UAE-based client needs and other key marketplaces in region, alongside being positioned to serve important Asian markets.

“At TP ICAP we put our clients first, being closer to them, understanding their needs and the landscape in which they operate, enables us to anticipate how we can best serve them in the future,” said Christophe Moser, managing director and head of Dubai.

“This expansion in the DIFC, one of the world’s premier and fastest growing financial hubs, underscores the Group’s vision of delivering industry-leading liquidity and data solutions, broadening its market reach in a pivotal and high-growth region.”

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Mazen Najjar

The builds on the firm’s existing presence in the region as Marex looks to enhance its offering to institutional clients across MENA. 

Shahab Hashemi, chief executive (MENA) at Marex, said: “This strategic move strengthens our current operations and better positions us meet the evolving needs of our clients in the region. Incorporating prime services to our offering allows us to deliver more tailored and localised solutions to hedge funds, family offices and other institutional clients.”

As part of this push, Mazen Najjar has been appointed in an institutional sales role in the prime services team, the first hire for the team in the jurisdiction. Prior to joining Marex, Dubai-based Najjar spent six years at IG Prime.

Mazen is set to focus on developing the prime services team’s regional sales strategy, bolstering its presence in the region and forging partnerships. 

“We welcome Mazen Najjar to our Dubai office. His extensive experience in prime brokerage and client-led approach will be invaluable in delivering localised support to our growing hedge fund and family office client base,” said Jack Seibald, global co-head of prime services and outsourced trading at Marex.

“This development builds on Marex’s momentum in the region and reinforces our commitment to providing enhanced support and tailored solutions to institutional clients.”

The post Marex Prime Services establishes UAE presence appeared first on The TRADE.

Steven Sanders

Through this new alliance, HSBC clients will have access to WorldTrader – powered by Interactive Brokers – a new digital investment platform allowing customers in the UAE to trade equities, ETFs, and bonds in 25 markets across 77 exchanges.

Clients can trade via both a mobile app or online platform, with additional markets expected to be added. 

Read more: Interactive Brokers enhances APAC reach with extended Korean derivatives trading hours

Steven Sanders, EVP of marketing and product development at Interactive Brokers, said: “We are pleased that HSBC has chosen Interactive Brokers, a premier provider of white branded solutions for introducing brokers and banks. 

“Our suite of services includes powerful technology and trading tools, competitive pricing, and access to global markets. Institutions worldwide continue to select our platform to streamline their businesses and meet the needs of their clients efficiently.”

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Joe Collery

“There has certainly been developments, particularly in electronic trading in these regions but I would still say perhaps proceed with caution because it can be difficult,” he said. 

“[…] There is definitely an appetite for our money to invest in these areas because there is a fantastic growth story there but I think we would certainly feel a bit more comfortable trading these markets high touch where you just have those added pair of eyes in the market where the expertise are.”

Specifically, Collery highlighted the important role of portfolio managers and a proactive approach to forging those key relationships.

“Behind all this is the PMs that have done the leg work with the company itself, they’ve visited, they’ve walked the floor of the factory and they’re very comfortable in the structure of the business and then that gives the desk that added impetus to comfortably invest.” 

Read more: The TRADE sits down with head of trading at Comgest, Joe Collery at TradeTech 2024

However, when it comes to the empirical execution, PMs should aim to be realistic the panel agreed, especially as regards to foreign exchange, trading day hours, and the ever-disputed settlement processes. 

“You should put the systems in place first that allow for smooth straight through processing before you even begin to think about entering the area […] PM’s lead the way but note that there’s a time – three months, six months, whatever the case may be – depending on your internal set up to get this in place and create a realistic road map.” 

Sandeep Sabnani, head of equities product strategy and growth at ION Markets, echoed this sentiment, highlighting that having a trusted technology infrastructure in place is paramount.

“You have to make sure that you’re not opening yourself up to operational or reputational risks while you’re trading in these emerging markets, there’s a high level of comfort that you need, and this picture is evolving. This picture is changing as we see more international players trying to access. 

“What gives the buy-side the trust and confidence of ‘my execution is going to happen exactly as I expected’ you need the researcher side of course, but also from a tech standpoint that can give you a solid foundation to build your business on within these emerging markets.”

Read more: Two thirds of prop trading firms plan to trade new exchanges this year

Getting into the more granular details about the systems being put in place in order to enable the buy-side to seriously invest in the EM space, Fahad Al Ammari, head of cash markets development at the Saudi Exchange, shared that the story began nearly a decade ago with the country’s ‘2030 vision’. 

“The Saudi Exchange plays an important role. There is a financial sector development programme within the country which involves all of the financial players,” he said. 

“In the past decade, we’ve seen increase the number of investors and the number of listings we’ve issued, the qualified Foreign Investors Regulations was introduced 2015, which allows foreign investors to have direct access to the market and today we have 3800 foreign investors. In terms of liquidity, we’re seeing high growth, especially after Covid and today we’re seeing around 2.5 to 3 billion US dollars traded every day which is big.” 

Read more: Saudi Exchange welcomes Merrill Lynch to growing list of market makers

Further delving into how stability and reliability are being baked into emerging markets systems, Sabnani highlighted the relevance of India’s recent shift to T+1 and the expectation for T0 and an eventual move to instant settlement.

With this in mind, the panellists agreed that when it comes to emerging markets understanding the minutiae of the different regions is of the upmost importance and something to be overlooked at firms’ own peril. 

As Sabani explained: “What you’re trying to do here is you’re looking at two different sides of the coin. Markets want to grow, but then there’ll be interesting challenges such as different settlement regimes which is a very hot topic across the board […] what this means is for a broker it becomes extremely challenging to understand how to have multiple instruments settling in different settlement regimes or different currencies.” 

The question ultimately becomes whether these players have the right infrastructure and systems to cope with that complexity. To trade in the emerging markets space, you must be aware of trading intricacies which affect trading hours, such as public holidays and other potentially unforeseen speed bumps. 

“These challenges must be at the top of everybody’s list when you’re looking at the other global network,” concluded Sabnani.

The post Buy-side trading head recommends cautious approach to emerging markets despite strong investor interest appeared first on The TRADE.

Women in the financial industry in Singapore have always held a significant role. According to a Deloitte study in 2021, women in the Singapore financial industry held 20.8% of C-suite roles and 24.5% of senior leadership roles, outperforming the Asia average, and 44.9% of managerial roles below senior leadership. The proportion of women on boards of Singapore’s top 100-listed companies has grown to 22.7% as of June 2023, up from 15.2% at the end of 2018 according to the Council for Board Diversity in Singapore. 

Read more: The TRADE launches Diversity & Inclusion Survey for 2024

Among our efforts as an exchange to promote diversity, we mandated listed companies to set a board diversity policy back in 2021. I believe the pandemic also played a role in getting organisations technically ready for flexible work practices. While progress has been made in advancing gender diversity, there is still some way to go in changing mindsets and encouraging a workplace culture that is truly inclusive. As a member of the executive committee of the Financial Women’s Association of Singapore, I am optimistic that with increased awareness, we will certainly move in the right direction!

In your work in equities and derivatives across Singapore, ASEAN, Middle East, India, and Australia where has the majority of the market’s attention been focused over the last six months?

Last year was marked by volatility and geopolitical risks and looks to continue into 2024. It ended with most Asian equity markets in positive territory despite tight monetary policy conditions and 2024 started with even higher volatility – for example, 30-day volatility in January was 17% (up 3 percentage points month-on-month) for FTSE China A50 index, 14% (up 4 percentage points) for Nifty50 index, with the Nifty50 index hitting an all-time high at 22,097 on 15 January 2024.

Our international customers continue to turn to our multi-asset offering in a persistently challenging macro environment. As a result, derivatives traded volumes on SGX have risen to record levels, with strong increases across equities, FX and commodities. Notably, we saw deep trading liquidity through the extended Lunar New Year holidays in Asia in February, as our markets remained open even though local markets were closed. Our SGX FTSE China A50 Index Futures, which is the most liquid international futures for Chinese equities, reached a new high in February with daily average volume of about 535,000 lots, the highest since August 2020.

An interesting one was the activity in SGX FTSE Taiwan Index futures on the back of TSMC – the largest component stock of the index – earnings release and positive news flow from the global technology sector through February. As global funds continue to be drawn to India, GIFT Nifty Futures saw significant activity as well as new record day volume (US$5.5B) and open interest (US$4.85B) in our SGX INR/USD Futures in February.

What are the key areas of divergence between the regions? 

There has been much discussion on this year’s global economic outlook, particularly around the interest rate environment. Rising geopolitical tensions and divergence in economic performance remain top of mind. With Asia contributing about two-thirds of global growth, investors around the world have also been looking for alpha opportunities in this region.

Market participants typically look at global markets based on their risk profile, investment objective and market familiarity. These shape their trading strategies, such as long/short equity, macro multi-strategy, tactical event-driven, etc. We have seen the investing and trading communities express their strategies on SGX as an effective and efficient venue to access close to 100% of Asia GDP across asset classes.

In the Asia-Pacific region, SGX’s products find a natural familiarity amongst investors by virtue of proximity and extensive economic and social ties. We have always had a ready audience in these regions for productive discussions. We are also having more of such conversations with diverse investors in the US and Europe, on the back of increasing volumes and liquidity in non-Asian time zones.

How can international institutions best navigate Asia’s idiosyncratic risks?

Asia is a very diverse and multi-faceted region, each country with its own development pace and unique market characteristics. SGX started as the first international derivatives exchange in Asia, with our roots in predecessor organisation SIMEX which goes back 40 years. We have been simplifying Asia for decades, with the aim to provide international investors with a highly liquid, single-point access to Asia, round the clock.

Having pioneered many products over time, we have fostered an enduring trust among customers that SGX operates with international best practices. It is our mission to be that central beacon for anyone seeking to participate in Asian multi-asset markets in equities, currency and commodities – bridging global investors to Asia and vice versa.

The post Celebrating International Women’s Day with… SGX Group’s Lily Chia appeared first on The TRADE.

For growth to occur, panellists expressed that South Africa’s general investment universe needs to grow, weighted global indices need to improve, and exchanges need to get bigger and more liquid.

“We all have a role to play in trying to maintain our weight and relevance in global markets. We need to look at markets holistically and think how we’re going to boost supply and demand in our market,” said Helina Sumbhoolaul, head of SA delta one trading and head of dealing at JP Morgan.  

“The derivatives market is more liquid than the underlying equity market. Volume in that market is driven by a big investor base and it’s also driven a lot by electronic market making. Looking at the supply side of our market, the most effective way of boosting liquidity is to encourage market makers to participate in the market by some sort of incentive scheme. 

“On the demand side, we need to promote a diverse set of the investor base with a strong focus on foreigners and enhancing retail participation.”

Low touch trading was also noted by panellists as a key driver of increased volumes in general globally. To keep South Africa’s relevance in relation to other markets, panellists argued that local exchanges should continue to invest in tech that attracts interest from firms that execute using low touch, high frequency, algorithmic trading strategies.  

Elsewhere, moving to T+2 settlement within South Africa was highlighted as something that could help increase efficiency within the local market and remove costs associated with dealing with varying settlement cycles – ultimately improving the attractiveness of the South African market.

Panellists also emphasised the need for South Africa to set itself apart from other markets to help improve the growth of its derivatives market. However, issues within the country were noted as factors limiting this growth.

“The headwinds of economic growth, electricity issues and grey listings have not made it easy,” said Roberto Pharo, head of derivatives at Peresec. 

“Those are largely out of our control, but what is in our control is liquidity to some degree, price dissemination and central order book activity. There’s still only one instrument that really trades on the central order book. That’s something that we as a collective need to rectify.”

Extending central clearing counterparty (CCP) services was also noted by Matthias Kempgen, chief information and operating officer at JSE Clear, as an area that South Africa was falling behind in. Kempgen highlighted that the bonds market and equity market’s move to a CCP model will add a lot of value to those markets in terms of protecting investors.   

“Another key element is technology programmes and the modernisation of our platforms. It is inevitable that we have to replace technology, but we need to do so in a manner that the market is able to absorb that change at an acceptable pace,” concluded Kempgen.

The post JSE SA Trade Connect 2024: Catching up to the global derivatives markets appeared first on The TRADE.

As an already established common theme at this year’s conference, the liquidity landscape was noted by Erica Bruce, president of the South African Institute of Stockbrokers (SAIS), as being key to future developments around the number of brokers participating in the region and the way in which they operate.

Bruce argued that South Africa has “its own issues” which have ultimately impacted the market negatively – affecting liquidity, as well as the relevance and interest in South Africa from international investors. “Without liquidity, our market is dead,” she emphasised.

“Everybody talks about listings, but you can’t look at listings in isolation of IPOs. The reality is if you don’t have issuers and you don’t have investors, you don’t have a market. It is imperative that we make sure that whatever we do, we look after those.”

When assessing new initiatives to boost the attractiveness of the region to investors and those looking to list, Bruce emphasised that enforcing regulation must be approached with caution.

“We have to make sure that we aren’t over-regulated. However, regulatorily speaking, the lack of action [in South Africa] has created even bigger challenges for our market and left us behind a lot of the international markets,” she said.

“There is no collaborative blueprint across regulators, or the buy- and sell-side. Everybody is sitting in their own bubble, working in their own spaces and trying to survive. We’re trying to change regulation [in a way] that often does not look at the end-to-end unintended consequences.” 

Panellists also emphasised that a careful look at the South African market and regulation needs to be made to decide if the objective is to become an international broker, competing head-on-head with the internationals, or if the goal to ensure that there is harmonisation in regulation, despite nuances in the South African market.

The trading venue landscape is changing in South Africa. Historically dominated by the JSE, there has been little to no fragmentation and therefore no need for the technology to support local broker connections to multiple exchanges.

New players such as A2X have continued to gain traction in recent years, however, and the potential for additional platforms to enter the market is likely to grow alongside volumes if interest in the region is boosted. 

Amid the potential shift towards a multi exchange environment, a significant technology investment has been required from a lot of brokers within the market and this has impacted the competitive landscape, panellists noted. 

“If you’re a global player, you can invest a huge amount into technology because you have the scale to deploy it globally,” said Matthew Rattray, chief executive of RMB Morgan Stanley. “However, if you’re a single market operator, you rely heavily on vendors to help you and assist you with that. It has become a tech race in terms of getting execution costs as low as possible.” 

Collaboration – as mentioned in several panels today – was highlighted as an important aspect to the future of the broking business model, therefore.  

Panellists pointed out that within the brokerage world, traditionally, practices tend to operate in siloes and firms tend to own everything front-to-back. This has resulted in a severe lack of collaboration between firms. 

“With cost optimisation and with regulation changing in terms of how we need to operate, there is an opportunity to come together and see how we partner,” said Nivedna Maharaj, SBS Securities CEO and head of global markets retail investments at Standard Bank. 

“As financial institutions, we need to see what we’re good at and what we can work with other third parties to bring to the market. If you don’t change that mindset, we could end up killing the market ourselves.”  

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Baugh pointed out that South Africa has not been immune to macro issues impacting other financial markets and that notably, last year’s rebalance of the MSCI emerging markets index and the reduction of South Africa’s weighting led to an increase in sales of South African securities by international investors.

Brokers and nonresident brokers with access to international markets were noted by Baugh to have been increasingly sourcing liquidity in dual listed names offshore. This is occurring in markets that either offer greater liquidity and lower implicit costs relative to the local market in South Africa, he argued.

“They then go on to sell onshore to their domestic clients, which has also given the impression of a sell off, when in fact this is actually driven by local demand for these dual listed securities,” said Baugh.  

In the keynote, Baugh re-emphasised that changes in market dynamics are not very different to those seen in Europe. This was credited not only to ever present macro conditions, but also to the interconnected nature of the two markets.  

“Liquidity has been increasingly hard to come by,” stressed Baugh. “The daily turnover cash equities in value terms is down 10% across both regions in 2023. If you just measure intraday onward liquidity, the decline has been even more acute.”

Baugh highlighted the need for collaboration to ensure the whole market can adapt to difficulties in sourcing liquidity – collaboration being a huge discussion point at the conference so far.

With connection to agency brokers, Baugh also discussed opportunities to differentiate smaller businesses from larger players.

“Your ability to navigate complex and fragmented markets while outperforming competitors can set you apart from others, particularly when liquidity or at least like-minded liquidity is increasingly hard to come by,” he said.

“And to that point, it’s not even about accessing all liquidity all of the time. It’s about being thoughtful, targeting the right liquidity at the right time in order to achieve those objectives as set out by your clients.”

The post JSE SA Trade Connect 2024: ‘South African markets not that dissimilar to European markets’ appeared first on The TRADE.

Specifically, the solution offers spot matching functionality for US dollar against Kenyan shilling, allowing anonymous orders to be placed into a central limit order book.

These orders are displayed and subsequently matched with counterparty orders “based on mutual trading limits and other parameters configured by each bank”.

In addition, BMatch is able to be integrated with each banks’ middle and back-office systems and consolidated trade statistics can be made available to the wider market. 

Read more: Bloomberg enhances offering with new FX pricing quality tools

Tod Van Name, global head of FX electronic trading at Bloomberg, said: “We are delighted to support the Central Bank of Kenya with our BMatch solution, which will help increase transparency, liquidity and efficiency on the local foreign exchange market. Bloomberg has extensive experience in providing robust technical infrastructure solutions for foreign exchange markets and can easily adapt these to the specific needs of any market around the world.”

Last March, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan (CBA) also adopted Bloomberg’s FXGO solutions, which included market surveillance tools, as well as BMatch and a deposit trading solution.

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