trueEX, a New York-based electronic, CFTC-regulated exchange for interest rate swaps, announced on Tuesday it has opened a Singapore office to provide trading access for interest rate swaps denominated in 28 currencies, including 11 in the Asia-Pacific region. The company reported that on the back of significant volume growth, dealer and buy-side adoption of Mexican (MXN) TIEE and Brazilian (BRL) DI swaps, it is expanding its platform and presence in APAC. MXN TIEE swaps grew 284% and BRL swaps grew 187% from 2016 to 2017.
According to trueEX, among the 28 currencies that are available on its platform are AUD, CNY, HKD, INR, JPY, KRW, MYR, NZD, SGD, THB and TWD in the Asian-Pacific time zone, as well as throughout US and European trading hours – all via one global connection.
The opening of trueEX’s Singapore office comes right after the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) proposed new rules to enhance market transparency, requiring that OTC derivatives be traded on organized markets. They plan to seek an equivalence determination from the US. Christopher Yoshida, Chief Strategy, Sales & Marketing Officer of trueEX LLC, stated:
“With the tremendous growth in support of the trueEX platform, we’ve seen a significant increase in demand for trading in Latin American, European, and now Asian-Pacific currencies. From the outset, the Asian markets have been a key component of our long-term strategy. Now that it’s become a reality we’re able to not just meet the needs locally, but provide a gateway between participants in Asia-Pacific and the rest of the world.”
Andrew Baker, Head of trueEX’s Singapore office, added:
“There is a growing demand across the region for more liquid local currency hedging instruments. Providing these services is a natural extension of our ‘client first’ approach, which has led to us to developing a significant global footprint across 28 currencies and multiple protocols across all the major time zones.”
trueEX is now available to traders in Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand in accordance with all local regulations in each respective region. The move follows a 460% increase in trading on its swap execution platform in 2017.