North American multinational network of electronic exchanges and clearing houses Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE) today announced the first five futures contracts to be listed for trading and clearing at ICE Futures Singapore and ICE Clear Singapore on March 17, 2015, subject to regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
Singapore is the world’s third largest interbank and institutional FX center, as well as being the largest in Asia, therefore a poignant location from which ICE can offer its new renminbi futures contract. Singapore’s prominent domestic venue, the Singapore Exchange (SGX) recently showed the entire industry the potential of on-exchange renminbi futures, having launched its own renminbi futures contract in October, with its first day having resulted in over 1 billion yuan in trading turnover and margin.
The first tranche of products include the following regional futures contracts:
• Mini ICE Brent Crude futures
• One-kilo Gold futures
• Chinese Cotton No.1 futures
• Chinese White Sugar futures
• Chinese Renminbi futures
All contracts, excluding the One-Kilo Gold futures contract, will be cash settled. The One-Kilo Gold futures contract will be physically settled, with delivery in Singapore.
ICE selected these contracts following feedback from market participants, which emphasized the regional significance of hedging and trading each contract to local market participants. These new futures contracts will complement ICE’s existing portfolio of benchmark contracts, which includes ICE’s Brent, Sugar No.11, White Sugar, Cotton No.2 and Mini-Gold contracts; as well as the soon to be launched World Cotton contract.
ICE Trade Vault, LLC has submitted a foreign trade repository application to MAS, which will further support market participants’ compliance with regulatory reform in the region.
ICE has had a local presence in Singapore since 2000 as a result of its global oil business. Today, Singapore is an increasingly important commercial and physical hub for Asia’s financial and commodity markets. Through this base of operations in Asia, ICE plans to offer further global and regional products while expanding its network of exchanges and clearing houses to serve the trading, data and risk management requirements of global market participants.
For the official announcement from ICE, click here.