Citigroup increases global participation for Singapore Mercantile Exchange

Citi's reach to push the Exchange's trading growth potential in the Asian marketplace.

In a release from the Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX), the first pan-Asian multi-product commodity and currency derivatives exchange, it announced that Citi has become active on SMX as a General Clearing Member.

Acting via Citigroup Global Markets Singapore Securities, Citi is now able to trade and clear for its global customers on SMX. Existing and prospective Broker Members and Trade Members of SMX now have a larger pool of Clearing Members to clear their trades.

Mr. Conor Cunningham, Head of Listed Derivatives for Asia Pacific, Citi, said: “With this development, Citi aims to better facilitate the trading and clearing of derivatives for its customers in the Asia Pacific region and globally. Citi is committed to Singapore as a major global financial centre and supportive of initiatives to give clients greater transparency and security in trading and clearing derivatives. This is an important step forward for Citi as we broaden our connectivity to trading and clearing venues across the region. It reinforces Citi’s strategic commitment to the derivatives clearing business globally”.

Mr. V Hariharan, Chief Executive Officer of SMX, said: “We are delighted to have Citi become an active General Clearing Member. Their reach in the international marketplace will help us expand the global trade participation we currently have on our Exchange. Citi’s participation underlines the potential the Exchange has in advancing growth in trading in the Asian marketplace. We look forward to working closely with Citi to expand the liquidity pool within the Asian time zone in products aligned to Asian trade flows.”

Citi is a leader in the Markets business in Asia Pacific, offering clients leading solutions across, equities, fixed income, commodities and currencies in 18 markets including plain vanilla and structured solutions using derivatives. With operations in over 100 countries, local trading desks in over 80 countries and connections with over 400 clearing systems, Citi has the global footprint along with the local presence and expertise to serve clients’ evolving needs.

SMX went live for trading on 31st August 2010. Its electronic platform offers multi-currency and multi-asset clearing, trading, and pricing for contracts with guaranteed settlement and delivery. Currently, its product suite consists of 13 products including two crude oil benchmarks, Brent Crude priced in Euros and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude Oil, currency pairs- Euro-US Dollar, AUD – USD, USD-JPY and GBP-USD currency futures, the first Gold futures contract in Singapore to be settled via physical delivery, a cash settled Gold futures contract, a Silver futures contract, a Copper futures contract as well as the world’s first globally traded iron ore futures based on the Metal Bulletin Iron Ore (MBIO) Index and the world’s first global Black Pepper futures contract.