Left to right: Pradyumna Agrawal, Managing Director, Blockchain@Temasek; Lee Beng Hong, Senior Managing Director, Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC), SGX
Singapore Exchange (SGX) and Temasek today announced the formation of a joint venture (JV) that is set to become Asia Pacific’s first exchange-led digital asset venture focused on capital markets workflows through smart contracts, ledger and tokenisation technologies.
The JV will look to partner with fixed income issuance platforms to connect to its post-trade and asset servicing infrastructure, providing issuers, arranger banks, lawyers, investors and paying agents with a comprehensive, issuance-to-settlement network for Asia bonds. Concurrently, the JV will focus on other existing and emerging asset classes that have seen growing market demand, including funds and sustainable finance.
According to a press statement, the partnership was built on the previous collaboration between SGX, Temasek and HSBC which culminated with the issuance of Asia’s first public syndicated digital bond for Olam International in August 2020. In all, SGX’s digital asset issuance, depository and servicing platform was used to issue four digital bonds by several issuers, with a total size of over S$1 billion (US$752 million).
“The early success in our digital bond issuance platform has paved the way for SGX to make a larger move into digital assets, and we are very excited to take our digital asset business to the next level in partnership with Temasek. Together, we will capitalise on digitalisation trends that continue to shape global capital markets, and advance the development of capital markets infrastructure in Asia,” said Lee Beng Hong, Senior Managing Director, Head of Fixed Income, Currencies and Commodities (FICC), SGX.
The partnership between SGX and Temasek combines SGX’s multi-asset experience and strengths in operating market infrastructure to the highest regulatory standards, together with Temasek’s expertise in blockchain technology and ecosystem connectivity.
“We have been tracking the evolution of financial market systems and the opportunities for development of digital infrastructure that will transform how financial transactions are conducted. We are pleased to partner SGX in this effort towards the continual improvement of capital markets through the development of innovative end-to-end digital asset solutions,” added Pradyumna Agrawal, Managing Director, Blockchain@Temasek.
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Image Credit: SGX, Temasek
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