Singapore/Hong Kong, 22 November 2022 – SGX has been awarded Exchange of the Year and ESG Initiative of the Year in the 5th Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence 2022 at an in-person ceremony on 22 November 2022.
During the year, SGX demonstrated resilient operations despite the heightened volatility and challenging conditions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and other external factors, leveraging digital tools and other technology capabilities to improve its efficiency and oversight of listed issuers. This included the use of a real-time market monitoring system to identify risky trading behaviour, take pre-emptive action, and guard against market misconduct.
As Exchange of the Year, SGX was recognised for a broad range of projects and initiatives that came to fruition during the year. At the start of the year, SGX listed Singapore’s first SPACs, based on a new regulatory framework that drew lessons from other markets to enhanced regulatory safeguards and ensure alignment of interests between sponsor and investors. “SGX’s SPAC framework might currently be considered the safest in the world from an investor perspective,” said one judge on the Regulation Asia awards panel.
On the global stage, SGX has now formally established a trading link with India’s maiden international financial services centre, known as GIFT City, enabling global investors to access Nifty equity derivatives and a growing liquidity pool for such products. SGX also launched a new OTC FX trading platform called CurrencyNode, established an ETF link with Shenzhen, introduced dairy derivatives via a partnership with NZX, and opened up opportunities for SGX-listed companies to list in Johannesburg.
On the sustainability front, SGX further advanced its regional leadership in listings of green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds, and launched Climate Impact X, a global marketplace for high-quality carbon credits. In addition, new listing rules were introduced that promote board diversity and require issuers to provide climate-related disclosures consistent with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures on a ‘comply or explain’ basis. A roadmap is now also in place for mandatory climate-related disclosures by issuers in the financial sector and the non-financial industries potentially most affected by climate change and the transition to a lower-carbon economy.
In the ESG Initiative of the Year category, SGX was recognised for the launch of ESGenome, an ESG disclosure portal designed to facilitate sustainability reporting for listed companies and address investor needs for a consistent and reliable source of comparable ESG data. As part of this effort, SGX formulated and introduced a set of 27 core ESG metrics that issuers are encouraged to disclose, to align ESG data across issuers and make such disclosures more decision-useful for investors.
“ESGenome addresses the misalignment between ESG information reported by companies and the needs of market participants,” a judge on the awards panel said. “Companies today experience challenges in knowing what and how to disclose to investors. ESGenome reduces this compliance burden while also ensuring greater consistency and comparability across companies and sectors. This is a model other regulators and exchanges should try to emulate.”
Listed companies can use ESGenome to create and generate sustainability reports, leveraging access to over 3,000 ESG metrics mapped to global ESG reporting standards and frameworks. The platform can also be used by companies, at no cost, as an internal ESG monitoring and management tool.
About the Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence 2022
The Regulation Asia Awards for Excellence recognises financial institutions, technology companies, legal and consulting firms, exchanges and other players that help ensure the highest regulatory compliance standards are upheld in the financial industry. Each year, senior industry practitioners serve on a judging panel to help assess and score each submission to determine the winning entrants.
For a full list of the award 2022 winners, visit www.regulationasia.com/awards.
About Regulation Asia
Regulation Asia is the leading source of actionable regulatory intelligence for Asia Pacific markets. With over 12,000 subscribers, including regulatory bodies, exchanges, banks, asset managers and service providers, Regulation Asia plays a key role in shaping the regulatory agenda.
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