SMX’s membership, trading volume, turnover at all time high

The exchange’s trade volume at 9,659 contracts, trade turnover surpassed US$350mn and membership more than doubles at over 50.

Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX), the first trans-Asian multi-product commodity and currency derivatives exchange, set a new record on Wednesday when the trading volume hit a historic high of 9,659 contracts and the turnover crossed USD 350 million. Trading on SMX has consistently witnessed a surge in trading volumes and turnover over the last few weeks.

SMX which went live on August 31, 2010 has seen its membership number double over the past 11 months crossing 50. The exchange had started with 25 members and four contracts and today has more than 50 members including 7 clearing members and 11 contracts.

Ang Swee Tian, Chairman of SMX, said: “Since inception SMX has focused on putting in place robust systems and risk management processes and we are now reaching an inflection point. The confidence and support in the marketplace will help SMX position Singapore as the epicenter of the global commodities trading from Asia.”

Jignesh Shah, Vice Chairman, SMX and Group CEO - Financial Technologies Group said, “SMX is like an infrastructure project and we have enough experience of setting up and managing successfully greenfield exchanges across various continents. It is heartening that one of our most prestigious global projects – SMX – is on the right track to become an Asian hub of commodities trading and price benchmarking for the world.”

V Hariharan, interim CEO of SMX, said: “The team at SMX is quite happy with the new milestones and we are looking at growing the traction further as new Asia centric contracts get launched over the next few weeks We are enhancing the currency basket and will also be looking at some agri and non-agri contracts in the days to come.”

SMX had gone live on August 31, 2010 with futures contracts for Singapore deliverable gold, physically-settled currency pair Euro-USD, WTI crude and Brent crude priced in Euros. The introduction of the GBP-USD and cash settled Euro-USD contracts on July 29, 2011 will take the total number of contracts available on SMX to 11. SMX had earlier introduced the AUD-USD and USD-JPY futures from April 29, 2011. This was in addition to the cash-settled gold, silver and copper futures which commenced trading on SMX from April 15, 2011, according to an SMX report.

SMX trading sessions span Asian, European and US business hours, with central counterparty clearing performed by SMXCC. The SMX platform allows remote participation through its diverse network of members and ISVs. The Exchange also offers its own proprietary front-end solution for direct market access.