While admitting that “the sub-prime crisis largely by-passed Asia”, Reuters has nonetheless gamely put out a paper suggesting the credit crunch has reinforced the need for accurate valuation of liquid assets in the region. The vendor can hardly be blamed for jumping on the sub-prime bandwagon and reinforcing this message, since it is seeking to build up its pricing business in Asia (Asia Markets IT, July 2007). And to be fair, the survey it carried out in 10 markets in the region contains some useful analysis of the state of play with valuing assets in each.

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All eyes are on Australia as three new entrants seek to make their mark on the equities marketplace. As can be seen from our coverage starting on page 1, the Australian market is braced for change as these upstarts, if you will, seek to offer the kinds of electronic execution services that are now sweeping through the U.S. and Europe.

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You have to go a long way these days to avoid hearing some mention of the “credit crunch” and this issue of Asia Markets IT is no exception. The impact of the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the US has been felt far and wide in the world’s financial markets, and several of the commentators we’ve spoken to this month make reference to its effect on their businesses.

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Statistics show that Japanese individuals’ financial assets reached 1500 trillion Yen this year – Y100 trillion higher than six years ago. However, more than half of these assets are still held in the form of savings, rather than in stocks and investment funds, and the focus is on facilitating the shift to investments away from pure savings: indeed, one of the aims of the forthcoming Financial Instruments and Exchange Law (often referred to as JSox) is to ensure market functions are secure to support this shift.

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As is being comprehensively tracked on Asia Markets IT publisher A-Team Group’s portal at www.low-latency.com, the global industry’s focus on taking latency out of the infrastructure to speed up market data and support increasing algorithmic trading activities is at an all-time high. News last month that low latency derivatives trading on the Singapore Exchange is being facilitated by BT’s Radianz Proximity Solution confirms that the focus on latency reduction is as strong in the Asian region anywhere.

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Recent research from analyst TowerGroup suggested that global IT spending by exchanges is set to slow. Having reached US$2.72 billion in 2006, spending will grow by only three per cent through to 2009.

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A major trend emerging from the pages of Asia Markets IT since its launch earlier this year is that of companies based in Europe and the US partnering with and acquiring
businesses native to markets in the Asian region in order to get a foothold within them. This strategy is being deployed both by financial institutions of all kinds and by the vendors of technology to them.

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Welcome to Asia Markets IT. This is a new monthly publication that, we believe, is the first of its kind to focus entirely on the impact of IT on financial markets in the Asia-Pacific region.

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