• Reflects SGX’s stewardship[1] in index investing, cementing our leadership in indices, passive investing and derivatives globally

• ETF is anchored by Prudential, one of the largest asset owners in Asia and a member of the NZAOA[2]

SGX Group and BlackRock are taking the lead in helping investors reach their low carbon transition objectives with the listing of iShares MSCI Asia ex-Japan Climate Action ETF. SGX, with the support of BlackRock and MSCI, is harnessing the power of its extensive partner network to spearhead the creation and implementation of a comprehensive global ecosystem of climate-related market solutions.

The ETF tracks the MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Climate Action Index, which is part of the suite of MSCI Climate Action Indexes launched in end 2022. The Indexes favour a bottom-up approach and select the top 50% of companies in each GICS® sector based on the company’s carbon intensity and commitments such as science-based target setting, green revenues or opportunities, together with its climate risk management. It is the largest equity ETF launched in Singapore, with assets under management (AUM) of US$426 million at launch.

With this ETF, investors who wish to incorporate low carbon transition objectives in their portfolios can access best-in-class companies in Asia ex Japan who are committed to reducing carbon emissions. The fund is managed by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, and anchored by Prudential, one of the largest asset owners in Asia and a member of the Net Zero Asset Owners Alliance.

In Asia, the acceleration of climate transition has become increasingly evident. As the region manages climate risks, it can also present a substantial investment opportunity. The shift towards renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure and technologies opens new avenues for growth and innovation. Within Asia, Singapore has solidified its position as a sustainable finance hub, attracting a substantial influx of capital from investors seeking to align their financial activities with climate considerations. As such, climate action instruments such as this ETF can play a crucial role by directing funds towards companies and projects focused on climate transition.

Michael Syn, Senior Managing Director and Head of Equities, SGX Group, said, “SGX Group plays a vital role in galvanising stakeholders within the financial ecosystem to mobilise capital and develop solutions to effect real change in addressing climate change. With the market and investors signalling their readiness for it, we have been working in partnership with BlackRock and MSCI to create a new global ecosystem of climate-related instruments such as this ETF and the climate action derivatives that were launched earlier this year. By providing these tools, we are supporting investors in building a diversified portfolio of climate-conscious assets, enabling them to do their part for the transition while benefiting from the potential financial upside.”

Peter Loehnert, APAC Head of iShares and Index Investments, BlackRock, said, “Asia Pacific is the largest and fastest growing region for energy transition investment, offering transformational opportunities for investors with climate-focused objectives. Investors globally are increasingly choosing iShares ETFs as ideal vehicles to align portfolio allocations and implement low-carbon transition goals. This new fund will provide them with an innovative, unique and powerful building block to access companies in the region leading the transition. As the world’s largest provider of ETFs, our aim is to offer clients an unrivalled choice of products to help them achieve their investment goals, and we are pleased that our close partnership with SGX Group has helped bring the fund to Singapore, a state that has had an outsized impact in global climate leadership.”

Gillian Tan, Assistant Managing Director (Development and International) and Chief Sustainability Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore, said, “The successful launch of the iShares MSCI Asia ex-Japan Climate Action ETF is the outcome of close collaboration between SGX Group, MSCI and BlackRock, and adds to the suite of innovative products in Singapore that supports transition and decarbonisation efforts in Asia. Looking ahead, Singapore welcomes the development of solutions that facilitate decarbonisation, while meeting the investment and risk management needs of issuers, asset owners and investors in the region.”

[1] SGX Group is co-chair of a global workstream on index investing workstream with GFANZ, NZAOA, NZAMi and NZFSPA. [2] UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

FMIs issue industry paper on challenges and opportunities addressing constraints of scale and interoperability Today, three of the world’s largest financial market infrastructures (FMIs) – DTCC, Clearstream, and Euroclear – released a paper on the state of the industry’s digital asset evolution. The paper calls for increased collaboration to progress an ecosystem that currently includes fragmented standards, varying regulatory treatment, limited integrations with institutional-grade payment rails and siloed liquidity – all limiting factors to the further digitalization of global financial markets.

While the last several years have seen a growing number of initiatives seeking to establish digital asset-based solutions, the paper suggests that industry-wide transformation will likely slow, unless these challenges are addressed. The paper highlights that two constraints in particular – scale and interoperability – must be addressed as priorities.

Years of smaller deployments have resulted in sub-scale, isolated pools of liquidity on proprietary DLTs, creating obstacles to growth. In 2023, 74% of DLT projects across the capital markets involved fewer than 6 participants. Today’s digital asset initiatives are also highly disparate, with varying standards and propositions related to settlement and custody processes and inconsistent approaches to the supervision and governance of smart contracts and related DLT protocols. These challenges, if unaddressed, will perpetuate a fragmented landscape, and run counter to the very efficiencies of DLT that the industry set out to capture initially.

As FMIs, DTCC, Clearstream and Euroclear bring their expertise in innovation and driving industry transformation to address these challenges. To advance adoption and scale, DTCC, Clearstream and Euroclear pledge to collaborate with the industry, ultimately reducing the costs of connectivity and enabling consistent operating standards across processes, platforms, and digital assets themselves.

Jennifer Peve, Managing Director, Global Head of Strategy & Innovation at DTCC, stated: “We are at an inflection point as an industry when it comes to DLT and digital assets. With digital assets forecasted to grow in value to around $16 trillion over the next 15 years, now is the time to assess what is needed to propel advancement. While we have all accelerated our learnings and identified the benefits of and constraints related to DLT on a smaller scale in recent years, there is broad recognition of the growing need for well-regulated, neutral players to provide trust, resilience and standardized connectivity in their respective ecosystems – the role FMIs like DTCC have played for decades – to drive digital asset adoption.”

Jens Hachmeister, Managing Director, Head of Issuer Services & New Digital Markets at Clearstream, said: “New technologies and digital assets will transform the financial industry. As a neutral financial market infrastructure, we are uniquely placed to help the industry’s transition efforts by modernising infrastructure and driving the adoption of standards across DLT protocols and smart contract language that will lead to better and faster interoperability between ecosystems.”

Philippe Laurensy, Head of Group Strategy, Product Management and Innovation at Euroclear Group, commented: “Financial market infrastructures (FMIs) have a long legacy of supporting technological innovation. Today, the pace of change is consistently accelerating and alongside our partners, we wholeheartedly embrace the promising potential of blockchain and digital assets. FMIs play a pivotal role in helping to unlock the true business value of digital assets through our robust, resilient ecosystem. By providing leading edge analysis with our peers, we can continue to pave the way for further advancements and bring ground-breaking solutions to the market which is aligned to Euroclear’s purpose to innovate to bring safety, efficiency, and connections to financial markets for sustainable economic growth.”

By engaging with traditional and new market participants, DTCC, Clearstream and Euroclear’s unique collaboration will help to advance the digital asset ecosystem by driving and encouraging market dialogue on the required characteristics of DLT networks, data access, privacy and smart contracts, and ultimately enabling greater interoperability, broad adoption of standards, enhanced operational resilience, and a more robust case for change across the industry.

Acquisition will position DTCC to provide global leadership in bridging best-in-class industry practices with advanced digital technology to encourage adoption of digital assets

DTCC, the premier market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Securrency Inc. (“Securrency”), a leading developer of institutional-grade, digital asset infrastructure. The acquisition, which is expected to close within the next several weeks, will position DTCC to provide global leadership in bridging best-in-class industry practices with advanced digital technology to encourage acceptance and adoption of digital assets.

Securrency will become a fully-owned subsidiary of DTCC and will operate under the name DTCC Digital Assets. Nadine Chakar, CEO of Securrency, will join DTCC as Managing Director, Global Head of DTCC Digital Assets, reporting to Lynn Bishop, DTCC Managing Director and Chief Information Officer. Chakar will also join the DTCC Management Committee. In addition, Dan Doney, CTO and founder of Securrency, John Hensel, COO and co-founder, and other members of the Securrency leadership team, as well as roughly 100 Securrency staff of full-time employees or contractors, will become DTCC employees.

Frank La Salla, President, CEO and Director, DTCC, said, “Securrency is an important strategic acquisition that will give us the technology to drive market-wide transformation by enabling end-to-end digital lifecycle processing for tokenized assets, digital currencies and other financial instruments. By bringing together DTCC’s commitment to providing market stability and our unparalleled network of financial market participants with the sophistication of the Securrency technology, we will be in a leading position to unlock the value of digital assets and help guide the industry through its digital transformation journey. We believe this next generation of financial market infrastructure will further reduce settlement times, facilitate market transparency and risk management, enhance regulatory oversight and controls, and unlock efficiency and innovation to create an improved investor experience.”

By combining DTCC’s digital capabilities and Securrency’s technology, DTCC will fast-track development of its enterprise digital asset platform to unlock the power of institutional DeFi. DTCC will leverage the technology over time to embed digital assets within its existing products and services, develop new, regulatory-compliant blockchain-based offerings and explore use cases with the industry, including buyside asset managers, broker-dealers and custodians, to collaborate on new DTCC blockchain-based solutions.

In addition, DTCC will lead the industry’s development of a robust, global digital infrastructure by licensing the Securrency technology and offering professional services. Firms will be able to leverage the technology to transform and evolve their operating models and to create innovative, new digital asset services alone or in collaboration with other market participants – similar to how WisdomTree licenses Securrency’s software as part of the infrastructure for its WisdomTree Prime™ offering that provides tokenized assets and funds via digital wallets for retail investors and consumers.

Chakar said, “As we join forces with DTCC, we are excited to bring together DTCC’s infrastructure capabilities with Securrency’s technology to embrace a future where the digitization of capital markets is at the forefront of innovation. These capabilities will allow DTCC to partner with the industry to build a resilient and scalable infrastructure critical to the mass adoption of digital assets. Together, we will unlock opportunities to reimagine compliance, liquidity, efficiency and interoperability in trading real-world assets on the blockchain.”

DTCC also plans to provide global leadership to foster industry-wide collaboration to help avoid fragmentation with different digital technologies and standards. Securrency’s technology can address this issue by acting as a DLT-agnostic harmonization layer that promotes interoperability, liquidity, transparency and security.

La Salla said, “We look forward to building on our past work to drive consensus around the standards, controls and frameworks necessary to support regulatory-compliant digital asset solutions and development of the right architecture and infrastructure to ensure widespread interoperability. We’re excited to welcome our new colleagues to the DTCC team and to begin collaborating as a group to strengthen market stability and resilience and drive greater efficiencies, productivity, risk mitigation and liquidity in the global financial markets.”

DTCC’s digital asset strategy focuses on establishing the digital infrastructure to extend its core services to the digital asset ecosystem and deliver no-touch, end-to-end processing. Its strategic priorities include:

• Exploring development of digital products and services to address gaps in market infrastructure or that optimize the end-to-end lifecycle

• Establishing a control framework for digital asset securities

• Executing client-driven pilots aligned to the firm’s core capabilities and services

• Advancing industry-wide dialogue on interoperability to inform future connectivity models

Euroclear Bank, the Brussels based International Central Securities Depository (ICSD) has announced today that it has become an eligible securities collateral location of Eurex Clearing AG, one of the leading Central CounterParties (CCPs) globally.

Clients of Euroclear Bank and Eurex Clearing will now be able to post collateral directly to Eurex Clearing with the ability to further optimise the pool of collateral held in Euroclear’s ICSD. The service offering increases operational efficiency for market participants and streamlines the collateral management process.

Eurex Clearing already uses Euroclear Bank as an eligible securities settlement location.

Olivier Grimonpont, Managing Director, Head of Product Management, Market Liquidity, Euroclear commented: “We are excited to have Eurex Clearing joining the group of CCPs using our services to support their critical margining activity. As an open financial market infrastructure we continuously strive to benefit our ecosystem by creating efficiencies which contribute to a more stable, secure financial marketplace, providing the best in class service to clients.”

Matthias Graulich, Chief Strategy Officer, Member of the Executive Board of Eurex Clearing said: “We are pleased to offer Euroclear Bank as an additional securities collateral location for provision of margin and default fund contributions. With this service we jointly create added value for our clients by facilitating a smooth access to the CCP and by enabling efficiencies across the clearing community. Furthermore, Euroclear Bank strengths our offering for the buy-side clients and complements our existing services such as ISA Direct and ISA Direct Indemnified clearing models.”