BNP Paribas Securities Services says it has signed up Investec, along with another three unnamed international brokers to use its third-party clearing and settlement platform in Hong Kong.
Barnaby Nelson, BNP Paribas Securities’ Asian head of bank broker and client development said that through the medium of its clearing platform, the firm was able to provide the essential tools to help global brokers in Asia.
In a further expansion of its Singapore activities, BNP Paribas plans to launch a third party clearing service for the Singapore Stock Exchange later this year. In December 2012 it announced it would provide post-trade service to banks and brokers to clear, settle and safe-keep stocks under the cross-trade agreement between the London Stock Exchange and the Singapore Exchange.
The BNP Paribas clearing and settlement product was launched originally in Asia during 2011 to support equities, warrants and ETFs.
According to an Asian survey jointly carried out by BNP-Paribas and Swift, 27% of Asia’s brokerages have outsourced some component of their post-trade infrastructure. That percentage has doubled in the last two years.