Best EM trading platform: Deutsche Bank

 

Deutsche Bank’s high liquidity, cost efficiencies, innovative solutions and breadth of services secure it the Best emerging markets (EM) trading platform award at the FX Markets Asia FX awards

During the past 12 months, which have seen FX volatility spike on recurring outbreaks of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and fears over rising global inflation and interest rates, Deutsche Bank’s focus on providing its clients with deep liquidity, cost efficiencies, innovative solutions and a wide range of services has won it the Best EM trading platform award for the second year in a row.

“This award is testament to our commitment to innovation, the strength of our platform, our extensive onshore Asian presence and, ultimately, how we respond to industry needs,” says Ashok Das, head of global emerging markets, Asia, for Deutsche Bank in Singapore.

As a key market-maker across 14 locations in the Asia-Pacific (Apac) region, Deutsche Bank provides liquidity in large sizes and long tenors, in multiple asset classes and markets, and is a leading primary dealer for Asian government bonds with one of the largest market shares across onshore markets. Within this context, Deutsche Bank’s emerging markets platform, Workflow Solutions – developed by the bank’s Corporate Bank and Fixed Income and Currencies business units in Apac – links treasury processes into automated workflows, simplifying complex processes for clients moving money to, from and across markets with capital restrictions. The component-based Workflow Solutions allows Deutsche Bank’s clients to address workflow challenges across collections, payments, funding and FX, into and across such markets.

Workflow Solutions combines not just with Deutsche Bank’s extensive multi-jurisdictional market presence across Asia, but also with its long-standing onshore operations and market expertise in major locations across central and eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. This breadth and depth of reach also enables Workflow Solutions to seamlessly connect onshore and offshore markets, supported by Deutsche Bank’s trading capabilities, broad-based product suite, strong regulatory relationships and innovative structuring capability.

This robust infrastructure and platform innovation across different parts of Deutsche Bank has enabled it to act swiftly and effectively to deal with the challenges of the ever-changing market backdrop over the past year. In addition, utilising its US and Europe, Middle East and Africa-based Asia trading hubs, Deutsche Bank is the first bank to offer clients access to tradable prices in many local Asian markets across multiple products outside of local trading hours. In so doing, it has also brought its global client base to the Apac region.

One notable example of this during the past year was Deutsche Bank’s use of its Workflow Solutions platform to develop a fully integrated payment, liquidity and FX solution for a large multinational corporate’s operations in India, generating savings each year in the single-digit millions range. Working alongside the client, Deutsche Bank navigated the complex operational structure – which featured multiple, inefficient manual procedures across several legal entities – to completely streamline and automate cross-border flows, integrate FX execution and hedge adjustments. Deutsche Bank worked with the client for around 12 months, with more than 50 meetings totalling upwards of 2,500 hours discussing its FX, trade finance and cash management requirements, with teams spread across India, Germany, the Philippines and Singapore. At the end of this process, the solution provided by Deutsche Bank to the client is believed to be the first of its kind in the Indian market.

More recently, Deutsche Bank and SANY Group, the world’s third-largest high-end equipment manufacturer, headquartered in China, have implemented Deutsche Bank’s Workflow Solutions platform to optimise liquidity between SANY Group’s Indonesia and head office entities.

Through Workflow Solutions, SANY Group and its Indonesia arm can achieve the key target of better managing its liquidity – both at group and subsidiary levels – and reducing costs through workflow automation, FX conversion and reduced FX risk exposure.

The Workflow Solutions platform fully automates the conversion of Indonesian rupiah (IDR) revenues and payment settlement into China. The conversion of IDR into renminbi (RMB) utilises a first-of-its-kind cross-border RMB FX solution developed by Deutsche Bank, which enables clients to leverage price differentials between onshore and offshore markets.

Such capabilities have allowed Workflow Solutions to help multiple clients improve the integration and automation of their cross-border flows with FX risk management, as well as enabling them to generate significant cost and process efficiencies. These solutions, combined with Deutsche Bank’s extensive onshore Asian presence, have enabled the bank to provide clients with enhanced levels of market access and a wide range of services across FX, interest rates, bonds, and derivatives products.

As a crucial adjunct to these offerings, Deutsche Bank’s onshore and offshore FX and interest rates capabilities offer clients a full suite of hedging tools spanning linear vanilla products – including FX forwards, options and cross-currency swaps – as well as complex products and structures in almost all regions and local currencies. Indeed, Deutsche Bank is one of the top primary dealers for most Asian government bonds and has one of the largest market shares across onshore markets.

Given the ongoing challenges facing global financial markets trading in the coming year, Deutsche Bank remains committed to broadening and deepening its emerging markets trading capabilities for its clients, directly and through its Workflow Solutions platform, enabling them to deal with any market conditions in optimal fashion.

“We continue to develop and implement unique and innovative solutions in this ever-changing market backdrop, where clients are increasingly looking to manage risks while accessing deep liquidity,” concludes Das.

 

Deutsche Bank was named Best EM trading platform at the 2022 FX Markets Asia FX Awards.

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