A new digital asset venture between Singapore Exchange (SGX) and the sovereign wealth vehicle Temasek has announced its first partnership – with Covalent Capital, the fintech backed by alumni from Deutsche’s global markets business, which was profiled by Euromoney in 2018.
The SGX/Temasek venture is called Marketnode and is focused on digital initiatives in the capital markets space. It builds upon a previous initiative between the two groups and HSBC, which led to the issuance of Asia’s first public syndicated digital bond, for Olam International in August.
The Marketnode partnership, announced on January 22, pledges to partner with fixed income issuance platforms in order to create a comprehensive digital network for Asian bonds from issuance to settlement. It is now clear that Covalent will be the vehicle for that and Marketnode has said that it will take a minority stake in the company.
When Euromoney first wrote about Covalent, it had grand ambitions to revolutionize primary debt capital markets. Founded by a group of ex-Deutsche bankers including former head of trading, Asian credit, flow, financing and credit solutions Sanjay Garodia and head of Asia-Pacific relationship management Mayur Ghelani, it built a platform for primary issuance that aimed to centralize and disseminate information around new bond issues.
The new announcement suggests that the Covalent platform, called OMAS, will now extend to the post-trade infrastructure, including custody and clearing, using the SGX’s listing, post-trade and asset servicing capabilities.
Read the full article here
