Within months of setting up base in Africa, the Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL) promoter of the country’s biggest commodity bourse Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) on Wednesday announced setting up of an electronic exchange in Singapore.
Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX), a fully owned subsidiary of Financial Technologies India Ltd (FTIL), would offer trading in metals, currencies, carbon credits and agricultural items, FTIL said in a statement. ?Markets are the barometer of growth for any economy and SMX will be the growth engine for Asia from Singapore with rest of the world – through transparent price discovery, risk hedging and will propagate structured private and public investment deep into the economy,? Jignesh Shah, chairman of FTIL said.
In May, MCX had set up a wholly owned subsidiary–MCX Africa–to take the futures trading in commodities to 53 African countries. Shah, also the vice chairman of SMX, announced the new exchange at the Global Financial Market Summit 2008 in Singapore. ?The Financial Technologies Group’s interest to establish SMX, within close proximity to the region’s largest producers and consumers of several commodities, underscores Singapore’s position as a key commodities trading hub,? Lim Hng Kiang, deputy chairman of Monetary Authority of Singapore and Ministry of Trade and Industry, said. SMX is currently in the process of obtaining the necessary regulatory approvals from the MAS, the company statement said. ?Financial markets and commodity markets are very tightly coupled. The new exchange will add to the stature of Singapore as global financial centre and more investments will flow into Singapore, as it becomes one stop financial and trading hub,? Ang Swee, chairman, SMX said.