Eurex has hired Citigroup’s former Asia Pacific head of futures trading Kris Hopkins to develop the Deutsche Boerse-owned derivatives market’s business in Asia and the Middle East.

Hopkins, who left SBI Digital Markets last month after a little over a year with the digital assets firm, joined Eurex on Monday September 12 to focus on selling the exchange’s equity and index derivatives to Asian and Middle Eastern clients. He continues to be based in Singapore.

A spokesman for Eurex confirmed that Hopkins has joined the firm.

His appointment is a boost for Eurex as the Frankfurt-based giant seeks to grow its Asian business through its exchange partnerships and Asian MSCI index products.

Hopkins was most recently the head of capital markets at SBI Digital Markets, a new digital assets firm based in Singapore and backed by Japanese financial giant SBI.

Before joining SBI in the middle of last year, Hopkins was the Asian head of futures execution and origination, a position he held until October 2019.

Hopkins was promoted in early 2019 to run at Citi Asia Pacific futures electronic execution, responsible for multi-vendor solutions and marketing the bank’s suite of trading algorithms.

He started at Citigroup in October 2017 as its head of futures execution for Singapore, responsible for domestic and international clients trading listed derivatives.

Hopkins joined Citigroup from Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he worked for four and-a-half years as its Singapore-based director and head of client execution for South East Asia.

Previously, Hopkins worked for seven years at JP Morgan in Singapore, latterly as executive director of futures and options, and spent three years at ABN Amro in Singapore as a derivatives sales trader covering US, Australian and Japanese listed rates.

Eurex, like most of its large international peers, has been in recent years working to grow the proportion of its business that it derives from Asia, the world’s fastest growing derivatives market.

The exchange launched in March this year futures and weekly options referencing the Korean benchmark index via its link with Korea Exchange (KRX).

Eurex board member Randolf Roth said in October 2020 the exchange was working hard to boost its Asian MSCI trading segment.

Eurex received in August 2020 regulatory approval to offer its mini-KOSPI futures to Taiwanese investors.