Deutsche Bank will reportedly launch an electronic foreign Exchange pricing and trading engine in Singapore, where demand for currency trading among institutional players is on the rise.
The launch is in line with the plans of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to develop the country as Asia Pacific’s FX trading hub. The nation’s markets regulator already supports several initiatives from different global banks who are in the midst of establishing their FX e-trading and pricing engines in the city-state.
Just yesterday, BNY Mellon was the latest bank to announce it builds a pricing and trading engine for sophisticated FX instruments in Singapore, also part of an initiative with the MAS.
Standard Chartered is also gearing up to launch an e-trading engine by the first quarter of 2020. The new engine will offer e-FX trading of 50 currencies in spot, forward, Swaps , non-deliverable forwards (NDFs) and options, as well as commodities e-trading for both precious and base metals.
Singapore is a key trading centre for Western banks, which have seen its e-FX trading volumes grow by double-digits over the last five years.
Deutsche Bank steps back in other segments
The news came as Germany’s largest lender was in talks with potential buyers for a wide range of its assets amid wider cuts at its US equities business, including prime brokerage and equity derivatives, part of its most dramatic overhaul in recent history.
Although Deutsche Bank’s PB unit is ranked in the top 10 largest prime brokers globally, the business contracted recently, with investors pulling $1 billion in assets since its CEO announced “tough cutbacks” at its investment bank.
Deutsche Bank said earlier this year that it is gearing up to cut hundreds of jobs in its equities trading and research, as well as derivatives trading, as part of a cost-cutting drive. The German lender plans to eliminate as many as 18,000 jobs, joining a growing list of global banks that have announced multiple jobs reduction rounds this year.
Germany’s biggest bank also faces pressure from investors to push ahead with further cost cuts this year and pull out of businesses where it isn’t profitable, especially after the collapse of merger talks with Commerzbank.
