Derivatives marketplace operator CME Group Inc (NASDAQ:CME) has announced the official opening of a new office in Australia.
Located in Sydney’s Central Business District, the new office affirms the company’s commitment to growth in Asia Pacific, and comes at a time when CME Group’s business in the region continues to experience healthy growth. CME Group’s Q2 2017 average daily volume from Asia Pacific stood at 637,000 contracts, up 5 percent compared to Q2 2016, largely driven by growth across volumes in Interest Rates (24%), Foreign Exchange (22%) and Metals (14%) products.
Simon Raybould, CME Group
CME Group’s Sydney office will be led by Simon Raybould, Head of Australia. Raybould was previously a non-executive director at CME Europe, and he has more than 35 years of experience in the financial services industry, including in various senior positions at Barclays, Euronext Liffe, and MF Global.
Interestingly, the move by CME comes just several months after the company took an opposite decision in Europe, with the company stating that it intends to close CME Europe, its London-based derivatives exchange and clearing house, by year-end 2017. The shuttering of CME Europe came as CME stated that EU clients prefer direct US infrastructure access.
“Continuing our international expansion is key to servicing the needs of our clients, and having a foothold in Sydneyputs us in a better position to support market participants in Australia,” said Terry Duffy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, CME Group. “Australia is a key international financial centre and commodity hub, and our office here will enable us to deliver our ever-expanding range of risk management solutions to our growing key client segments across asset managers, banking, commercials, hedge funds and proprietary trading.”
“2017 is an exciting time for CME Group in Asia Pacific, as we celebrate 30 years since we set up our first office in the Asia Pacific region in Tokyo back in 1987,” said Christopher Fix, Managing Director and Head of Asia Pacific, CME Group. “Australia is central to CME Group’s growth plans, being in the top five contributors of our revenues in the region, and we are excited to be able to bring our expertise and products here to help our clients with their risk management needs, especially in the areas of OTC clearing and trade repository services.”
With the latest office opening in Sydney, CME Group now has offices across seven locations in Asia Pacific, including Bangalore, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore and Tokyo. CME Group currently has about 300 employees in Asia Pacific across various roles, including business development, clearing, customer service, marketing, market operations, quantitative engineering, sales, and technology.
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. has been licensed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) to operate a derivatives trade repository for foreign exchange, commodities, credit, equity and interest rate asset classes, providing multi-asset class reporting solutions to help market participants comply with their global regulatory reporting requirements. CME Group has also worked closely with buy-side and sell-side participants in building a multi-asset class OTC clearing solution, and offers Australian market participants the broadest product scope with 21 IRS currencies, as well as 12 non-deliverable swaps and 26 cash-settled forwards.