Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has announced it will launch its Singapore-based exchange and clearing house in March next year, bringing competition to the derivatives clearing space in Singapore for the first time.
The Atlanta-based exchange and clearing house operator will launch ICE Futures Singapore and ICE Clear Singapore on March 17 2015, following its acquisition of the Singapore Mercantile Exchange last November for US$150 million.
The venture will be co-headed by Jennifer Illkiw, vice president for the Asia Pacific region and Lucas Schmeddes, president and chief operating officer of ICE’s Singapore exchange and clearing house.
The announcement of the launch date comes after the European Commission recognised Singapore, as well as three other Asia-Pacific jurisdictions, as having clearing house rules deemed ‘equivalent’ to the rules in the EU.
This means clearing houses in those countries, such as ICE Clear Singapore and the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) AsiaClear, can be used by European market participants to clear standardised OTC derivatives, whilst remaining subject to the supervision of their home jurisdiction.
The launch of ICE Clear Singapore is set to significantly change the clearing landscape, in which SGX AsiaClear has been the sole clearing house for exchange traded and OTC derivatives.
In addition, the OTC derivatives clearing space is set to further change when Deutsche Boerse’s derivatives unit, Eurex, launches its own clearing house in Singapore sometime next year.
Products that will be cleared through ICE Clear Singapore have not yet been announced, and await regulatory approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
In addition, ICE has submitted a foreign trade repository application to MAS to allow its repository, ICE Trade Vault, to operate in Singapore.
If approved, ICE will become the second foreign group to operate a trade repository for OTC derivatives in Singapore after the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation launched its global trade repository in Singapore in April this year.