The Man behind SMX’s spectacular success: Jignesh Shah

It would not be an exaggeration to call Jignesh Shah the ‘King of Innovations in capital markets’. The Founder of the Financial Technologies (India) Limited (FTIL) Group, Jignesh Shah is the man who made India proud with the launch of Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX) in August 2010. The stock exchange was launched in Singapore as a pan-Asian multi-product commodity and currency derivatives exchange. The bourse, that was once a part of the FTIL group is engaged in international trading of diverse range of commodities and derivatives, including futures and option contracts on precious metals, base metals, agricultural commodities, energy, currencies and commodity indices.

Before the development of this stock exchange, Jignesh Shah estimated that commodity trading business across the world is pegged approximately at 6.3 billion contracts, out of which 6.2 billion contracts belong to Asia.While Singapore was the largest place for dealing in foreign currency after Tokyo in 2010, the company provided a platform to trade in gold, Euro/US dollar currency futures and WTI crude oil futures.For Shah,Singapore was the best place to establish SMX since it was a major global financial center and had favorable regulatory framework. With the launch of SMX, Singapore’s financial markets were strengthened, and the growing needs of market participants in commodity and currency trading businesses were gratified.Shah’s policy that SMX was for Asia and from Asia, worked in its favor.
Notably, Singapore acknowledges an early history of commodity trading. As a matter of fact, Singapore began spice trading many decades ago which was well-received by the people of India. SMX consists of its own clearing house and a trading license.The exchange recorded $134 billion of cumulative trading volume by the end of 2012. Such an achievement for any organization in a span of two years is overwhelming. The credit for SMX’s phenomenal success goes to the vision of FTIL Founder, Jignesh Shah.