BNY Mellon has launched a foreign exchange dealing room in Singapore to facilitate trades in G10 currencies and the Korean Won.
The American investment giant said the move reflects Singapore's growing regional and global significance as an forex trading center.
"Singapore's rapid ascendancy to become the dominant forex trading hub in Asia-Pacific is not unexpected given its well-placed time-zone and robust financial infrastructure," Mark Militello, Hong Kong-based head of BNY Mellon's Asia-Pacific global markets business, said in a statement on Monday.
"The increasing importance of Asian currencies and the sharp increase in Chinese renminbi (RMB) trading in particular, is expected to fuel a steady rise in trading volumes in Singapore."
The new dealing room comprises an initial team of nine under the leadership of Kang Keon Ho, who has relocated to Singapore from BNY Mellon's Seoul branch as head of forex trading for Singapore.
Mr Kang joined BNY Mellon in 2010 from Woori Securities and reports to Richard Gill, global co-head of forex trading, based in London, and Mr Militello. Prior to Woori, Mr Kang spent 12 years with Citibank at their Korean and Singapore offices.
The new G10 dealing team joins the company's 30-strong global markets operations team which is based in Singapore.
The G10 currencies are are 10 of the most heavily traded currencies in the world and comprise the US dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Japanese yen, the Swedish krona, the Norwegian krone, the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar, the Swiss franc and the Canadian dollar.
Singapore is the world's third largest forex trading centre with 5.7 per cent share of the global, according to the Bank of International Settlements (BIS), the record-keeper of the world's central banks.
It pips Japan (5.6 per cent) and Hong Kong (4.1 per cent).
But forex trading here is one-seventh the size of global leader the United Kingdom (41 per cent of global market) and less than a third of the United States (19 per cent).
BNY Mellon said it believes Singapore will continue to grow over the next five years. The latest available data from BIS, published in February 2014, shows that Dingapore's average daily forex volume increased to US$383 billion (S$488 billion) as of April 2013, up from US$266 billion in the same month in 2010.
Said Mr Militello: "Local incentives from the Monetary Authority of Singapore have seen a recent surge in the number of fund managers domiciled in Singapore, and we expect that to continue to grow. Accordingly, I expect we will continue to see further investment in Singapore by forex providers in respect of new jobs and technology, as it is important and fitting that these services are provided locally."
BNY Mellon has forex sales and trading desks in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Taipei and Shanghai, as well as New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, London and Brussels. It also provides both forx research and technology.
