Kenneth
Global Markets
In my view, 2023 was fraught with events that resulted in increased volatility for the financial markets. The US regional banking crisis, geopolitical events in the Middle East, and higher for longer rates that led to higher funding costs made it quite a challenging year.
Despite the challenges faced, our strategic initiatives on enhancing our sales and trading capabilities yielded positive outcomes. We have successfully grown our customer base, increased cross sell for treasury products, expanded our product suite and achieved a 29% year-on-year growth in our customer-facing revenues.
Supporting our customers along their sustainability journeys
To assist our customers in their Sustainability journeys, our Emissions Trading desk, together with our Sales and Structuring desk, have provided our customers with carbon credit solutions to help them offset their carbon footprint, and move closer towards their net-zero goals.
Aside from carbon credits, we continue to see demand across all our customer segments – corporates, financial institutions, retail, and high-net-worth individuals – for sustainability-themed products. These products include sustainability-linked interest rate swaps, green structured deposits, ESG bonds, and carbon credits.
Enhancing customer experience with digital transformation
While we embarked on our digital transformation journey some years ago, it still remains a key focus for us as technology keeps rapidly advancing. We launched FX Invest which offers 24/7 pricing and execution for customers to transact FX beyond market hours and even on weekends. The platform now incorporates market insights and personalised price alerts on FX movements. Customers can also utilise in-built FX charts to monitor market trends and set automatic execution orders at their preferred rate. We also increased our online product suite to include precious metals such as gold and silver. We partnered with ADDX (a digital market exchange) and were the first Singapore bank to issue a tokenised equity-linked structured note for accredited investors. As a testament to Global Markets’ achievements in our digital transformation journey, OCBC won the following awards:
- Best for Digital Solutions, Asia Pacific award – CorporateTreasurer Awards 2023
- Best Retail FX Platform award for two consecutive years (2022 and 2023) – FX Markets Asia
- Best Online FX Platform in Southeast Asia award for two consecutive years (2022 and 2023) – Alpha Southeast Asia
Shoring up our strengths in line with our ASEAN-Greater China focus
With increased transaction volumes in interest rate derivatives from our customers for Asian and G7 currencies, OCBC Singapore applied for direct clearing membership and is now a member of LCH SwapClear and OTC Clearing Hong Kong Limited (OTC Clear). With OTC Clear membership, we are able to clear cross currency swaps (CCS) and interest rate swaps (IRS) in HKD and CNH. Membership also allows us access to Mainland China’s onshore swap market through Swap-Connect. With direct clearing membership through both LCH SwapClear and OTC Clear, OCBC is able to reduce counterparty exposure and achieve savings on risk weighted assets.
Looking ahead
We continue to be vigilant in 2024, and mindful of the macroeconomic environment. Global growth is expected to slow down and the inflation path remains uncertain, taking longer to return to target levels. We expect pockets of volatility both in FX and Rates to provide trading opportunities. The expected Federal Reserve rate cuts in the second half should also provide a more conducive environment for investment into financial assets.
Overall, we expect a stronger performance for Global Markets in 2024. We will continue to be a valuable partner to our customers in providing solutions for their financial needs.
Derivatives house of the year, Singapore (We won in 2016-2020, 2022 and 2023).
The five awards won are: Best for FX/Hedging Solutions in Asia Pacific, and in Singapore; Best for Digital Solutions in Asia Pacific, and in Singapore; and Best for Sustainable Treasury Solutions in Singapore.