OREANDA-NEWS. December 11, 2015. Singapore Exchange (SGX) today announced the successful launch of SGX Bond Pro, the first Over-The-Counter (OTC) trading venue dedicated to Asian bonds. 

SGX Bond Pro has been established under SGX’s subsidiary, SGX Bond Trading (“SGX BT”), a licenced Recognised Market Operator. It connects buyers and sellers of Asian bonds and provides them with multiple trading protocols that cater to their liquidity needs. The trading protocols were developed in consultation with the industry to facilitate how participants, including accredited investors such as global asset managers, private and investment banks, want to access liquidity.

The secondary Asian bond market faces an institutional liquidity challenge as a result of increasing fragmentation and concerns among participants of information leakage and subsequent market impact resulting in a prevalence of small trade sizes. SGX Bond Pro aims to address this through features that re-aggregate liquidity, provide enhanced protections for institutional investors and encourage larger trade sizes.

SGX Bond Pro began trading Asian corporate bonds in G3 currencies, with Asian local currencies to follow. UBS was announced as the General Counterparty for SGX Bond Pro in October 2015.

Loh Boon Chye, CEO of SGX, said, “The successful launch of SGX Bond Pro underpins our role as a leading market infrastructure provider and is an important step in diversifying SGX’s business mix.  We are committed to providing liquidity solutions across our markets and we look forward to seeing the benefits of this pioneering OTC trading venue in the Asian bond market.”

"UBS is delighted to have been a party to the first trade on this new platform today. It is UBS's belief that the market is evolving and platforms, such as SGX Bond Pro and UBS's Bond Port, will play a vital role in the future of credit trading," said Eric Lafon, Regional Head of FX, Rates and Credit Distribution.

"Julius Baer is pleased to be trading on this new platform, which has the potential to become a game changer on how we trade Bond Markets in the future," said Luigi Vignola, Head of Markets and Investment Solutions Group for Asia Pacific, Julius Baer.

"We welcome the introduction of SGX Bond Pro. Being a sizeable Asian Fixed Income investor, Eastspring Investments appreciates this initiative to improve bond market liquidity through such a platform," said Ooi Boon Peng, Chief Investment Officer, Fixed Income, Eastspring Investments.

“We are looking forward to SGX’s introduction of the SGX Bond Pro platform.  As the banking industry continues to undergo structural change, liquidity conditions in the overall bond market have deteriorated and an entrant like SGX will most certainly enhance liquidity in the Asian market.  The buy-side stands to benefit substantially from this and we plan to work closely with SGX,” said Biswaroop Tapan Barua, Managing Director, and Head of Fixed Income for Wealth Management, Standard Chartered Bank.