Deutsche Bank to launch e-FX trading hub in Singapore

By Edil Corneille

Deutsche Bank announced today its intention of establishing an electronic foreign exchange (e-FX) hub in Singapore. The bank will develop an FX trading and pricing engine onshore in conjunction with the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Earlier this month, BNY Mellon announced its partnership with MAS in the building of an FX pricing and trading engine as the bank continues to enhance its foreign exchange presence in the region. The Singapore e-FX hub by Deutsche Bank 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.

Deutsche Bank Head of Fixed Income and Currencies APAC, Head of Corporate Bank APAC and Chief Country Officer, Singapore David Lynne 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 centre in the region, hubbing this activity in Singapore makes perfect sense.”

The Monetary Authority of Singapore Executive Director, Financial Markets Development, Gillian Tan said, “We are heartened by Deutsche Bank’s commitment to build 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 centre.”

As global cross border payment processes rapidly move towards being completely digital, the bank will further develop its Singapore infrastructure to be the payments hub for transactional FX business in APAC. This will enable it to offer faster, automated FX and payment processes across the high growth but complex Asia markets, creating a center of excellence to drive digital real time treasury and open banking from Singapore into payment corridors across the region and globally.

Co-Head of APAC G10 FX Lee Merchant 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 into this area.”