Deutsche Bank is developing an FX trading and pricing engine in Singapore, in conjunction with the local financial watchdog, Monetary Authority of Singapore. The electronic foreign exchange (e-FX) hub will provide clients with the ability to execute FX transactions more closely aligned with the geographic location, reducing latency, improving on local price transparency and liquidity.
David Lynne, Head of Corporate Bank APAC and Chief Country Officer, said: “Given the substantial increase in demand for Asia currency e-FX we have seen in the past five years, growing client sophistication in e-FX trading, and the MAS’ focus on further developing the leading FX center in the region, dubbing this activity in Singapore makes perfect sense.”
Developed and staffed locally, the e-FX hub will be aligned to Deutsche Bank’s focus across e-trading, fintech clients, and digital FX payments. The initiative will make the city-state of Singapore Deutsche Bank’s fourth global FX center, along with New York, London, and Tokyo. The bank was ranked number 2 for FX globally in 2019, according to Euromoney.
Gillian Tan, Executive Director, Financial Markets Development at MAS, said: “We are heartened by Deutsche Bank’s commitment to building its fourth global FX electronic pricing and trading engine in Singapore, which will complement its APAC fixed income & currencies and global transaction businesses operating here. This will allow Deutsche Bank to build on its strengths as a key global FX player and support its regional clients with enhanced price discovery and execution from Singapore while leveraging Singapore’s strengths as Asia’s pre-eminent FX center.”
Deutsche Bank plans to further develop its Singapore infrastructure to be the payments hub for transactional FX business in APAC, thus enabling faster, automated FX and payment processes across the high growth but complex Asia markets. The new e-FX center forms part of the bank’s continued investment and development into digital and electronic platform client solutions.
Lee Merchant, Co-Head of GFX Asia Pacific, said: “Deutsche Bank’s current e-FX platform spans a wide range of tools for both institutional and corporate clients, with a focus on algorithm and API technology. We have successfully developed these solutions in Singapore and the broader APAC region; we will continue to invest heavily in this area.”
