SGX moves ahead with Asia's first perpetual future 'around year-end'
8th August, 2025|Radi Khasawneh
Singapore Exchange has said it is forging ahead with the group's plan to launch Asia's first regulated perpetual futures later this year as SGX reported annual revenue up 12%.
Speaking on an analyst call, president and head of global markets Michael Syn said the exchange is forging ahead with a planned listing of its first perpetual futures contract later this year.
“I think we will probably want to wait another six months to give you a more-thorough update,” Syn (pictured) said in response to an analyst question. “We've done a great deal of work. The timing is probably around year-end, subject to a number of things.
“The critical path is really about making sure that there is market readiness, because while it comes across purely as a payload - which is crypto - actually all the work is about the infrastructure required to deliver this new format.”
Perpetual futures are popular in offshore, unregulated markets but traditional exchanges are warming to the products, albeit offering limited time horizons to comply with regional rules.
“We're creating a new market category called the perpetual future, which doesn't really exist in the regulated future space,” Syn said. “So, a lot of the work we're doing is with customers, with intermediaries, with the post-trade, and of course with the OTC market participants that we're trying to crowd into our space."
SGX first announced in March this year plans to list the perpetual futures contracts.
“The timeline is as I indicated, and once it's launched and goes live, I think we'll give you a more fulsome update. But timing seems propitious. I mean, just on the news flow in the past week.”
Physical crypto exchange Bitnomial launched in April what it claimed was the first ever perpetual futures listed on a US exchange with a bitcoin/US dollar contract.
Paul Atkins, the chair of the SEC, launched last week “Project Crypto” aimed at implementing recommendations in a President’s Working Group on Digital Assets paper.
SGX on Friday presented full year results, with operating revenue up 12% to S$1.3 billion (£753m), as the firm benefitted from higher derivatives and over-the-counter (OTC) foreign exchange volume.
The Asian group's fixed income currencies and commodities reported operating revenue of S$350 million in the financial year, 9% higher than the year to the end of June in 2024, according to its results filing. Equity derivatives revenue rose 12% in the period to S$375.5 million.
Derivatives trading volume was up 17% in the twelve-month period to 1.3 million lots a day on average, compared to the year ending June 2024, according to the firm. The OTC FX business saw notional volume rise 29% to $143 million (£106m) in the period. A big part of that growth has come from efforts to cross sell products to existing derivatives clients, chief executive Loh Boon Chye said on the call.
“In the 2025 financial year, through effective client engagement, 6% of our direct trading accounts added at least one more asset class to their portfolio, a sign of growing confidence in our offerings,” Loh said. “This growth highlights the tangible value clients gain from trading multiple products with us, supported by platform-wide margin offsets and capital efficiencies, which help them optimise capital and diversify seamlessly on a single platform.
“Our cross-selling efforts have resonated strongly with clients who value synergies across asset classes. This is especially evident in our flagship China and India product suites, as investors seek broader exposure to Asia's largest emerging markets.”
CME Group booked an all-time revenue high of $1.69 billion in the second quarter of 2025 as the US exchange group benefitted from market volatility.
