Payment news, September 7

SMX is now live

The Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX) began operations on August 31 with the appointment of Standard Chartered, Royal Bank of Scotland and ICICI Bank as settlement banks. SMX is regulated and licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and offers multi-currency and multi-asset clearing, trading and pricing for contracts.

“We are focused on listing contracts to meet specific market needs of industry participants by providing bespoke futures contracts. Specialised derivatives solutions allow SMX to enhance market risk management and unlock hidden value by creating markets,” said Thomas J. McMahon, chief executive of SMX, in a statement. “It will be broad-based, have multiple lines and bring members across the global industry together to a central marketplace under one platform to do business.”

The exchange will run on a global futures and trading platform provided by RTS Realtime Systems Group.

Daiwa chooses solution by GigaSpaces

Daiwa Capital Markets has chosen to implement GigaSpaces’ eXtreme Application Platform (XAP) to power its electronic trading infrastructure in Asia-Pacific. XAP delivers swift end-to-end transactions, and at the same time provides a flexible and powerful infrastructure solution.

“GigaSpaces has a long, solid history of supporting financial services companies in their quest to maximise transactional performance,” said Adi Paz, GigaSpaces' executive vice-president of marketing and business development, in a statement. “As financial services transactions get more complex, maintaining the simplicity of the underlying infrastructure is critical. XAP will allow Daiwa to manage both the trading speed and volume, while ensuring underlying system operations run smoothly.”

Citibank Thailand launches Citi Locator

Citibank has launched its mobile locator service, Citi Locator, in Thailand. The value-added service, which is offered through Citi’s mobile platform, will allow customers to search for Citibank world privileges offers in 27 countries.

“We continually strive to develop alternative servicing channels to serve the rising demand of our customers, especially through online and mobile channels,” said Yuenyong Ken Songsiridej, Citibank’s country marketing director, in a statement. “We have seen rapid growth in mobile internet usage, with approximately 12 million current users in the country.”

“With this latest development following the introductions of Citi Alerts and Citi Mobile last year, we aim to increase the number of users by 20% by year end,” Songsiridej added.

Thomson Reuters launches Elektron

Thomson Reuters has launched its next generation real-time network and hosting environment, Elektron, in India. Working together with the Bombay Stock Exchange and its facility Netmagic Solutions, Thomson Reuters will build on its existing Elektron network in Asia-Pacific in Hong Kong, Singapore and Tokyo.

“Financial institutions are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their trading strategies for the Indian market and this is driving demand for our low latency solutions,” said Mike Powell, global head of enterprise real time solutions at Thomson Reuters, in a statement. “We are therefore delighted to be working with the Bombay Stock Exchange and Netmagic to facilitate improved access for trading participants as we look to set new performance benchmarks for market connectivity and managed services across the region through the Elektron cloud.”