(30 August 2019 – Singapore) JPMorgan has released its plans for the launch of a fourth electronic foreign exchange (e-FX) trading and pricing engine in Singapore for Q1 2020 with support from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The advanced e-FX trading and pricing engine follows several other groups expanding FX operations in the fast-growing Asian region with similar currency trading platforms including UBS, Citigroup, Standard Chartered, Euronext, Jump Trading and XTX Markets.
JPMorgan already operates FX trading and pricing engines in New York, London and Tokyo, with Singapore marked as the fourth location that the bank will expand into as MAS aims to boost FX trading activities across Asia. The central bank’s strategic initiative is to develop Singapore into a global price-discovery and liquidity centre for FX during trading hours in Asia. The US bank announced that the implementation will improve client experience through reduced latency in trade execution and greater price transparency. The new platform has been designed to accelerate trade executions for clients across a range of major Spot FX pairs and Precious metals.
“Singapore has been the firms long-standing FX hub in Asia” commented JPMorgan Head of Asia Currencies and Emerging Markets Trading, Sudhanshu Sanadhya. “With electronic FX trading set to grow in the region, Singapore will benefit from the flows and we see this initiative consolidating Singapore’s position as Asia’s leading FX trading centre”
MAS Executive Director for Financial Markets Development, Gillian Tan, welcomed JPMorgan’s decision to launch its electronic FX trading and pricing engine in Singapore, describing it as a boost for the island and Asia’s FX market. “A number of top-tier global players are building out their electronic trading and pricing engines here, which is strong validation and endorsement of Singapore as a global foreign exchange centre. With the growth in Asia’s foreign exchange trading needs and increasing demand for more efficient price discovery in the Asian time zone, regional market participants will benefit from better connectivity and latency, as well as enhanced pricing and trade execution in the Singapore foreign exchange electronic trading ecosystem” she stated.