The Bahrain Financial Exchange (BFX), the Multi-Asset exchange in the Middle East and North Africa, which will be internationally accessible to trade cash instruments, derivatives, structured products and Shariah-compliant financial instruments, today unveiled its plans for its membership activity to concentrate liquidity across the MENA region via its multi asset product portfolio.
The Greenfield International exchange owned by Financial Technologies Group of India, a leading global player in creating next-generation financial exchanges and ecosystem ventures, will be going live this year in October 2010.
Financial Technologies Group’s leadership in technology and domain expertise centered on financial markets and ecosystems coupled with global talent and management team and a world class competent board, and advisory board enables it to develop green field exchanges in fast growth economies.
BFX as a regulated market platform will endeavor to be the enabler of financial inclusion and will democratize ‘access’ to financial products and services through cost-efficient distribution - ensuring that the benefits of globalization are propagated to the last mile. The BFX will aim to propagate inclusive and equitable growth and an investment cult in the region to further propel economic growth and job creation in the local markets.
Jignesh Shah, Chairman and Group CEO, Financial Technologies Group said, “Asia, Middle East and Africa are among the fastest growing regions in the world and expected to continue to grow annually at 6% to 10% over next 25 years. Financial Technologies Group is perhaps the first company in the history of modern civilization to successfully set-up three green field regulated exchanges from ground-up which would go live in the same year. The scale of the vision is based on the ‘spice and silk routes’ that used to connect trading and financial communities from Africa, Middle East, India and Asia centuries ago with the rest of the world. Singapore, Bahrain and Mauritius are ranked among the top International Financial Centers and are equivalent of ‘New York and London and Tokyo’ of Asia, Middle East and Africa – the fastest growing economies in the world. Financial Technologies Group is singularly positioned to proxy the growth of these economies.”
This membership work will involve business development teams from the BFX meeting with key personnel from the leading financial institutions in the MENA region to discuss opportunities on how they can participate in the BFX markets. This work will also involve activity outside the region in places such as the US, London and India.
Mr. Arshad Khan, the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of the BFX and BCDC, said: “The work we have completed over the past 12 month has prepared us well for the membership activity our sales teams are undertaking from today. We have set ourselves very aggressive targets which have been built from meeting over 200 market players and I am pleased that we can approach these directly to bring them on BFX as members. We are also seeing great interest from outside the MENA markets due to the attractiveness and economic development taking place across the MENA markets.”
The BFX is offering membership via four categories each offering varying trading and clearing rights: Trading and Clearing Members, Trading Members, Clearing Members and Authorised Remote Members. Each category of membership infers different levels of access to the market and have been defined depending on the level of participation required by the financial institution and its clients. >
The sales team activities will be supported by the BFX Training Institute with a detailed training program for the prospective members. This program will enable the members to become familiarized with the BFX trading platform, product specifications, trading and settlement procedures, clearing mechanisms, amongst others.
As part of the membership facilities the BFX will offer to its members fully serviced trading facilities on the BFX Trading Floor. This will include an in-house client services team on hand to respond to trader requirements, service managed trading and back office solutions for individual or corporate users, data and information vending.
