SIX enhancing Swiss-Singapore financial ties
The Swiss company’s service offerings in Singapore are in the areas of exchanges, securities services and financial services
SIX, a financial markets infrastructure provider and global financial data vendor headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, through its activities in Singapore is enhancing Swiss-Singapore ties. Its work involves financial data, securities services, exchanges and fintech incubation.
The company provides market data which it gathers from the world’s major trading venues directly and in real time, thus connecting market participants around the world. It operates and develops infrastructure services for the Swiss and Spanish stock exchanges, for post-trade services, banking services and financial information with the aim of raising efficiency, quality and innovative capacity across the entire value chain of the Swiss and Spanish financial centres.
With a workforce of 3,685 employees and a presence in 20 countries, the company generated operating income of 1.5 billion Swiss francs (S$2.1 billion) and group net profit of 73.5 million Swiss francs in 2021. It is also building a digital infrastructure for the new millennium.
“We provide and operate stable and efficient infrastructure for the Swiss and Spanish financial centres, thus ensuring access to the capital markets and the flow of information and money between financial market players,” said Neil Thomas, SIX’s Singapore-based head of APAC.
“We are the Swiss competence centre for payments and other banking services. We provide data, regulatory services, and indices to customers around the world. We strengthen the competitiveness of our clients in our domestic and international financial markets through top class services and innovation,” he adds.
An unlisted public limited company, SIX is owned by 120 financial institutions which are also the main users of its services. As a group, it was formed in 2008 through the merger of experienced financial companies some of which have their beginnings dating back to around 1930.
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“SIX in Singapore is focusing on many of the things which we offer in our domestic markets. Core to our offerings is high quality financial infrastructure and data. We operate across 4 main business lines out of which 3 are represented in Singapore,” adds SIX’s regional head, securities services APAC, Lukas Conrad. He moved to Singapore last year to build up the company’s post trade team in the region.
The company’s 3 service offerings in Singapore are in the areas of exchanges, securities services and financial services. For exchanges, SIX has a joint venture with SBI Japan to deliver a regulated and trusted digital asset and crypto exchange out of Singapore. It will focus purely on institutional clients and is expected to link up with Switzerland and Japan in the coming years, creating a cross-border market offering, says Conrad.
With regard to securities services, “SIX has a longstanding and well-respected track record in delivering comprehensive and high-quality securities services (post trade) to banks, securities firms and other financial institutions and is convinced that its capabilities will positively contribute in particular to Singapore as a key hub for private banking and wealth management. Since the first of July, we have servicing capabilities available in Singapore to support our clients in their respective time zone,’’ he said.
As for financial information, Conrad says that SIX has maintained a constant presence in Singapore for over 30 years via its financial information services. “We work closely with local and international banks to deliver post trade data services – pricing, reference and corporate actions data. SIX also has regulatory data offerings which specifically cater to the requirements of the Asia-based regulators.”
As founding sponsor and the biggest minority shareholder of F10, the global fintech and insurtech incubator and accelerator, SIX also actively shapes the fintech landscape in Singapore and supports empowering cooperation between corporates and startups in the region, he adds.
Conrad says the company’s clients in Singapore include banks, private banks, wealth managers, sovereign wealth funds and asset managers. Asked how SIX’s clients benefit from the company’s service offerings, he says that it has a proven heritage of providing trusted institutional grade infrastructure to the market. Bringing the same high-quality services to Singapore ensures that the customers get the same level of quality no matter where they operate globally.
“Through its presence in Singapore, the securities services team will be better placed to gain regional market knowledge and pass this on to its clients worldwide facilitating further investments into Singapore and into the region through Singapore. Our clients will be better supported in their efforts to serve their own Asian clients as well as investors in Asian markets in a timelier manner,” Conrad said.
SIX’s presence in Singapore enhances Swiss-Singapore business ties, he says. “SIX is user owned and user governed. Our shareholders are 120 of the world’s leading financial institutions, many of whom have a major presence in Singapore. The relationship between Singapore and Switzerland is long established and working as well as ever. The countries share a common philosophy around innovation in financial services and drive thought leadership across the region.
“The recent Point Zero Forum, a unique collaboration between Switzerland’s State Secretariat for International Finance Matters (SIF) and Elevandi, an entity set up by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which was held in Switzerland in June, was a great example of this collaboration. SIX is well positioned to support this relationship and is always looking at ways to partner with the Singaporean finance community,” he adds.
SIX says that it has clients across the Asia-Pacific region and focuses on Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. The clients are served from its offices in Singapore and Tokyo.
“We also work closely with trade organisations across Asia, such as the SwissCham in Singapore and in Japan. We are also extremely active across Asia. SIX is also very active in the fintech ecosystem working via F10 with the Singapore Fintech Association. We are joined by a global cohort of influential banks, consultancies, insurers and tech firms,” says Thomas.
He adds that SIX has offices across the world and operates in over 20 countries, maintaining close links to the local markets to ensure its services are locally relevant. Of its almost 4,000 global employees, 50 are based in Singapore. SIX in Singapore has a largely local workforce, with only around 20 per cent of its employees coming from overseas. Globally, 68 nationalities are represented in its workforce.
In Singapore, SIX provides internships to talented young people. “Through the F10 incubator and accelerator, SIX has had a very successful internship programme hiring in from SMU, NUS and other local universities. We have taken around 10 interns locally, but we are looking to expand this as more business lines expand and opportunities for internships increase. SIX is working on cutting-edge financial services such as blockchain and data analytics, so we offer a very future orientated business,” Thomas said.
Asked about plans to grow the Singapore operations going forward, he says that SIX has entered into a joint venture with SBI Group in Japan to establish a regulated exchange for digital assets and crypto currency out of Singapore.
“We are currently seeking regulatory licensing and building out the team. Alongside this, we are working to grow our data services focusing on new regulations with local regulators such as MAS, HKMA, HK SFA and core data offerings to support international and local banks. We established a securities services offering last year and we are working closely with private banks and local custodians. F10 has been operating since 2019 and continues to develop. It has incubated over 100 startups and has recently entered into new partnerships with Franklin Templeton and Klaytn,” Thomas adds.
As head of APAC, SIX, he is a 14-year veteran of the company, having worked in Europe and Asia. He has been covering Hong Kong with major clients since 2013 and moved permanently to Singapore in early 2018. He is responsible for the Asia business growth across the group with a particular focus on financial data. Prior to joining SIX, he worked for Thomson Financial for 10 years out of London and Edinburgh.
Conrad as regional head, securities services, APAC, at SIX is responsible for market intelligence, relationship management, customer support and sales of settlement and international custody services. He has been in the securities services industry since the start of his career which started in 2007 at Credit Suisse, where he led several teams in operations, with initial experience in Asia. He joined SIX in 2016 as a senior relationship manager and in 2021 he was appointed to his current role and relocated to Singapore to build up the post trade team in APAC. As a senior manager, he has extensive experience in client relationship and leading teams.
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