A Look Back at Major Developments in Asia from 2018

As the world become increasingly intertwined, developments in Asia have yielded major opportunities for not only those firms operating in APAC, but also for companies in Europe and North America looking to enter the region.

Some of these developments include major infrastructure projects involving some of the biggest exchanges, data lineage issues, and how both banks and exchanges plan to use blockchain.

1. India’s Data Takeaway Leaves Index Derivatives in a Pickle: India’s decision to ban the use of their two exchanges’ index data for creating derivatives listed on offshore markets could have serious implications for exchanges and index providers.

2. SGX and NSE Battle Could Become a Long War: In the continuation of the India’s decision to ban the use of its index data, we see the Singapore Exchange (SGX) and National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) undergoing arbitration for the launch of SGX’s new futures contracts, which were meant to succeed the outgoing SGX Nifty 50 family products.

3. Asian Exchanges Overhaul Aging Systems: Several exchanges within the Asian region have taken on major technology projects to either upgrade their legacy platforms, or to experiment on distributed ledger technology.

4. ASX Considers Blockchain for Fixed Income: Only a few months after giving the greenlight for its blockchain project to replace Chess, its equities clearing and settlements platform, the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) says it is considering doing the same thing with Austraclear, its fixed income clearing and settlement platform.

5. Data is the Foundation for Automation: As regulators around the globe get more demanding in the how financial institutions present their data—it needs to be more accurate, timely and detailed—firms in Asia are finding that data lineage is paramount to implementing more sophisticated methods for data management and governance.

6. Increasing Demand for Japanese Insights: Data provider Thomson Reuters, which has been rebranded as Refinitiv, partners with financial information firm Quick to provide market commentary services on Japanese equity and derivatives, as demand for insight into the Japanese market rises.

7. CBA Issues the First Blockchain Bond: The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) is the first in history to launch a bond using blockchain—the instrument is called bond-i—on behalf of the World Bank.

8. JPX Considers Using Data Lakes: Ryusuke Yokoyama, CIO at the Japan Exchange Group (JPX)  discusses how the exchange is considering using data lakes to manage its data more efficiently.

9. MarketAxess Partners with BlackRock for New Liquidity Sources: Fixed income giant MarketAxess partners with asset manager BlackRock for access to new sources of liquidity in Asian credit markets.

10. HKEx Deploys AI in Surveillance Platform: Hong Kong’s stock exchange teams up with Nasdaq to roll out machine-learning surveillance capabilities.