Clearstream, the international central securities depositary (ICSD) part of Deutsche Brse Group, is offering same day cash services for customers using the Singapore Dollar (SGD) meaning that customers managing balances in this currency will benefit from deadlines close to Singapore deadlines.
This move is part of a drive by Clearstream to provide customers with Asia Pacific market
settlement solutions as efficient as those offered in US Dollars, Euros and other major currencies and to materially reduce their funding costs. Due to time zone differences, Asia Pacific
customers have been particularly disadvantaged by the need to pre-fund or finance their settlement operations in advance of their normal cash management activities in Asia Pacific currencies.
The SGD is the first of a series of major Asia Pacific currencies for which Clearstream offers same day currency deadlines, as announced in September. The Hong Kong Dollar, the Australian Dollar, the New Zealand Dollar and the Japanese Yen are to follow in the course of 2009.
The customer deadline for pre-advices and withdrawal of funds in Singapore Dollar deadline has been considerably improved. It is now 7 AM central European time (CET) of the day of the transaction. Previously it was 15 PM CET the day before. The equivalent local Singapore time is 14:00 PM during European winter time and 13:00 PM during European summer time.
These enhancements follow the launch of Clearstreams new generation processing environment last March. The scope of services benefiting from the new environment include not only settlement itself, but also instruction validation, matching, domestic market instruction handling and feedback, instruction sequencing, provisioning, collateral allocation and substitution and customer reporting. These changes will enable Clearstream to significantly strengthen its commitment to the Asia Pacific markets where Clearstream has been present since 1992.
We are very pleased that the SGD has become a same day currency in Clearstream, says Philippe Metoudi, member of the executive board, responsible for relationship management for Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. This reinforces our commitment to Singapore, where we opened an office in 2007 and which is a growing financial center in Asia Pacific. This is a natural progression in our servicing of our Asia Pacific customer base and supporting their regional cross border settlement needs.
This is the first step of our plan to deliver service levels to our customers in the Asian domestic markets equivalent to those our customers enjoy in Europe and the Americas, says Mark Gem, member of the executive board, responsible for business management.
D.C.