Market participants’ optimism about the Asia-Pacific capital markets business has increased this year, with 59% of trading and investing firms planning to expend their presence in the region, up from 40% last year, according to the ASIFMA 2025 Asia-Pacific Capital Markets Survey.
Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan are the top four markets for ease of doing business, factoring in market development and the regulatory and operating environments, according to buy- and sell-side firms surveyed by ASIFMA.
Trading Technologies, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology platform provider, has had a presence in Asia-Pacific since 2003 and has recently accelerated its expansion in the region.
Traders Magazine caught up with Jonathan ‘Jono’ Ferreira, EVP and Head of APAC Sales at Trading Technologies, to learn more about the region’s unique features, opportunities and challenges, as well as TT’s plans there.
The territory you oversee recently expanded from Australia/New Zealand to all Asia-Pacific. What excites you about your new role?
I see a strategic opportunity to shape Trading Technologies’ presence across a mosaic of markets, from Australia, to Japan, to Singapore and Hong Kong. Those are where we have offices, but really the job spans all the markets in the region, each of which has unique business cultures, unique infrastructure, and regulatory nuances.
Asia-Pacific is arguably the fastest-growing derivatives region in the world. If you include India, there were more than 100 billion contracts traded last year, and it’s been about 100% year-on-year growth. My colleagues in America and Europe are seeing strong growth, but it’s on a less dramatic scale. So I’m excited to work in an environment where growth is exploding, and I can help clients leverage TT’s best-in-class analytics, algos, surveillance, and multi-currency execution.
I’ll also add that Asia-Pacific is truly an innovation hotspot. We’re seeing exchanges constantly innovate and advance AI, blockchain technology, new order types, and synthetic order types, as well as carbon, ESG, and derivatives. I’m excited to be in that environment.
What are your objectives?
I want to continue to strengthen relationships with local clearing firms, brokers, and regulators to smooth access to markets. Connectivity is often cited as a bottleneck in the Asia-Pacific region, so we want to expand connectivity in areas where we already have access, like China, Korea, and Taiwan, smoothing access for offshore investors.
We also need to drive deeper adoption of the TT Premium Order Types and algorithmic execution strategies, to enhance client performance long term. I’m focused on building TT to be a unified cross-asset platform across APAC, from derivatives to cash equities, and also on growing TT compliance and trade surveillance.
How is the Australian derivatives market different or unique compared with the US, Europe, and elsewhere in Asia?
Australia and New Zealand are the Pacific component of Asia-Pacific. It’s an incredibly large region which we sometimes call the eight-hour triangle, because that’s about how long the flights are between Australia and Singapore, Australia and Japan, and Singapore and Japan.
If you look at market structure, Australia is centralized around the ASX, which is highly transparent and regulated. Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, there is fragmentation across national exchanges such as JPX, SGX, Hong Kong, and Korea. The client base in Australia is dominated by institutional and professional investors – superannuation funds and fund managers. Elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, there’s more of a mix of retail and proprietary trading firms, and more speculative flow. Retail participation in Australia is still developing, as it is constrained by certain account onboarding complexities and compliance requirements, whereas retail growth is explosive in the rest of Asia-Pacific, including India, China, and Korea.
Those are some differences within Asia-Pacific. To the question of how Asia-Pacific differs from the rest of the world, one aspect is that the region dominates the derivatives landscape, accounting for arguably 80% of global ETD trading last year, with China and India making up a significant part of that volume.
APAC includes more than 40 countries and spans developed markets like Japan and Australia to emerging markets like Thailand. Clients expect tailored engagement, reliable execution, multilingual support, and increasingly, 24/7 coverage — service quality expectations are high in Asia-Pacific, on both the institutional and retail sides. Also, there are diverse regulatory requirements, multiple clearing regimes in the region, and different margin rules and reporting standards, all of which creates complexity.
We’re seeing strong inflow demand from Europe and the US, but fragmented infrastructure creates local access and clearing challenges. This cross-border friction, along with some technical complexity, represents a challenge to connect to the regional brokers and gain access to the market. Speed, algorithmic execution, co-location, and advanced order types are essential to compete locally in Asia-Pacific.
Where does Trading Technologies fit in Asia-Pacific? What is its footprint / competitive position?
TT is co-located in all major APAC markets. We’re growing as a unified multi-asset, multi-service, trade life cycle platform, servicing futures, options, FX, fixed income, and crypto, with integrated trade surveillance. So that’s TT’s fit in the region, which doesn’t differ much from our fit in the rest of the world.
In APAC, we are deepening our institutional reach among regional banks and other large institutional players who increasingly require a multi-asset, multi-service platform. Our ability to provide true multi-asset execution and full life-cycle support — especially with our TT OMS offering — has solidified relationships with key regional banks, asset managers, hedge funds, and clearing firms.
Beyond that, a development that we have made that’s relevant to the region is pre-trade portfolio risk – specifically SPAN margin – which has enhanced our offering to regional clients by enabling seamless support and margining of TT Premium Order Types. We’re adding support to more markets, including KRX and TAIFEX, and we’re deepening our institutional reach with multi-asset execution and support over the full trade life cycle. We’re also leveraging artificial intelligence-powered surveillance models with spoofing detection, which has been very helpful.
What is your vision for the future of Trading Technologies’ business in Asia-Pacific?
I can’t say enough about the increased demand for seamless connectivity in the region. We continue to improve our connectivity in China, Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere, both for offshore investors and within the region.
Last year’s acquisition of ATEO, a middle-office managed service provider, has accelerated our expansion by enabling pre-trade credit checks, allocations, and automatic clearing connectivity. This is appealing to global and regional clearing firms that seek a one-stop life cycle solution.
Another initiative is around enhancing our FX and crypto offerings. Look at them together because there are synergies in the way people approach those marketplaces. As we’re expanding our FX offering – most recently with connectivity to EBS Market, EBS Direct, and CME Group’s new FX Spot+ platform – we are reviewing our crypto strategy. APAC dominates crypto – APAC traders in the region account for about 70% of Bitcoin trading volume, and crypto adoption in APAC is about three times the global average.
More broadly to the vision of TT’s future in APAC derivatives, I think we want to be a seamless global life cycle provider, the default platform for APAC from execution to clearing and allocation across all asset classes.
None of this comes without deepened partnerships and relationships in the region – collaborating with local exchanges, local clearing houses, local brokers, and local fintechs to improve market access, reduce friction, and bring down barriers to entry.
And personally, I imagine your new role will entail more travel around APAC?
TT has four major offices in Asia-Pacific – Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. We also have people on the ground in Taiwan, and there is consideration to add people elsewhere in the region. So yes, I do expect to spend more time in the air, but fortunately, having an incredible team on the ground in Asia-Pacific also means I can limit that travel.
The Trump Administration’s View on Regulatory Enforcement
By Jonathan Dixon, Head of Surveillance, eflow Global
We’re now well into the second half of President Trump’s first year back in the Oval Office, and clear signs are emerging regarding how this administration will take a different approach to the regulation of financial markets. In the last six months, we’ve already seen DOGE’s relentless cost-cutting and dismantling of agencies, as well as Gary Gensler’s resignation as Chair of the SEC, underscoring the new style of regulatory enforcement that we can expect to see under the Trump administration.
Following a record-breaking first quarter in which the SEC and CFTC issued over $100 million in market abuse penalties and announced more than 200 enforcement actions, Q2 saw a notable drop in enforcement activity with just 114 actions, a 43% quarter-on-quarter decline, and no fines for market abuse or insider trading in the U.S.
The dramatic reduction in fines is a result of the new administration restructuring under new leadership, combined with an outgoing administration which accelerated enforcement with 188 actions before leaving Washington’s power center. While the significant decrease in fines and enforcement action is at odds with the enforcement-heavy approach adopted by U.S. regulators in recent years, it is perhaps understandable in the context of DOGE restructuring and the resulting uncertainty in terms of future capacity.
So, does this mark a permanent change in approach from regulators? I don’t believe so. While regulators are undoubtedly talking more openly around the need for greater collaboration with firms, financial penalties remain the most effective deterrent to market abuse. And while President Trump is clearly a fan of lighter touch regulation as a stimulus of growth, it remains very difficult to see how this would be practical in established financial markets when measured against the need for long-term stability. I suspect that as the new administration fully beds in over the remainder of 2025, we will see a return to the volume of enforcement actions and financial penalties that we’ve seen in recent years, albeit not quite to the same record levels. Ultimately, time and the markets will be the judge of how DOGE cutbacks and new policies will impact market risk.
The new administration has already indicated its intent to tackle market abuse as a priority throughout the rest of the year, and the SEC has signaled a “back to basics” approach. Senior officials at the SEC have outlined plans to focus on enforcing core areas: insider trading, accounting and disclosure fraud, market manipulation and breaches of fiduciary duties. Specifically, the SEC has consolidated regional oversight and reorganized specialized units to improve efficiencies. The new Market Abuse Unit, headed by Robert Cohen and Joseph Sansone, will focus on complex insider trading rings and sophisticated market manipulation, including alternative trading systems.
In April, the CFTC issued an advisory to provide guidance on the criteria for self-reporting violations to its Division of Enforcement. This focuses on material violations and cases that involve significant harm to clients or market integrity. I believe that issues of lower severity will be more likely to be handled internally, signaling a more risk-based, resource-efficient administration.
With the resignation of Gary Gensler and the appointment of Paul Atkins as chairman of the SEC, the new administration is likely to move towards a less confrontational and a more cooperative approach toward financial services. Gensler was synonymous with very aggressive enforcement during his time as Chair of the SEC, issuing large fines and targeting a wider range of firms for non-compliant activity. He was also a vocal and highly public critic of crypto, describing it as “rife with bad actors” – an approach that was greatly at odds with President Trump’s personal views.
While I don’t expect to see any existing financial regulation repealed, we will see the new administration’s priorities rise to the top. For example, the recent passing of the GENIUS Act has indicated the administration’s belief in the importance of crypto assets and establishing regulations around an asset class that is rapidly emerging as a mainstream financial instrument. The prioritization of pro-business regulation around stablecoin issuance puts the U.S. firmly one-step ahead of the EU when it comes to the issuance of asset-backed stablecoins.
Whatever emerges over the coming months and years, there is no doubt that the U.S. financial markets are entering a new era of regulatory enforcement. As the year unfolds, we will likely see more organizational changes and priority shifts that will shape the regulatory space for the years to come.
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Jonathan Dixon is a global financial regulatory and compliance expert with 15 years of experience in senior regulatory roles including director of regulatory affairs-EMEA and APAC at Eventus, head of trade surveillance at Kraken and a trade surveillance consultant at Accenture.