Global Markets achieved more than 50% year-on-year increase in revenue. This growth was driven by the simultaneous outperformance of both customer-facing and market-facing activities, underscoring our commitment to excellence and innovation.
Kenneth
Global Markets
Interest rates finally eased, gold prices surged to a record high, geopolitical tensions persisted and a historic number of elections were held. Against this backdrop in 2024, Global Markets achieved more than 50% year-on-year increase in revenue. This growth was driven by the simultaneous outperformance of both customer-facing and market-facing activities, underscoring our commitment to excellence and innovation.
Central to our success was the One Group ethos. Global Markets Sales fostered close collaboration with various business segments, resulting in a robust growth in total customer sales revenue across all key customer segments. Our research team also plays a pivotal role in supporting the broader OCBC Group with essential research input.
In addition, our asset positioning in the first half of 2024, in anticipation of lower funding rates in the second half, led to a significant improvement in market-facing revenue.
Shoring up our capabilities for the future
2024 was a standout year in terms of positioning Global Markets for the future. A key achievement was our expansion into the Chinese securities market, where we capitalised on emerging opportunities. The challenging FX conditions China faced in 2024 led to favourable market opportunities for OCBC to invest into high quality onshore investment securities. The volume of investments increased significantly, leading to our recognition by Bond Connect Company Limited as a Northbound Outstanding Commercial Bank.
It is also worth noting that Global Markets' astute and prudent management of credit securities has helped solidify our presence in the debt securities market, winning us the accolade of Top Investment House in Asian G3 bonds (Singapore, Banks) from The Asset Benchmark Research Awards for 2024, marking our tenth consecutive year of receiving this honour since 2015.
In line with our digital transformation strategy, we enhanced our e-commerce capabilities, working with channel partners to expand our online offerings. In 2024, we successfully added 35 new currencies for corporate clients, introduced online MYR remittances for retail customers through Malaysian money transfer service DuitNow, and launched FX online services for our Hong Kong clientele. These added capabilities further enhanced the overall banking experience for our customers. In addition to FX, our online precious metal offering has seen strong growth with trading volume doubling year-on-year, on the back of gold prices hitting record prices.
On the new economy front, we were the first bank in Singapore to launch the sale of bespoke tokenised bonds to corporate accredited investors on our asset tokenisation platform. Our innovative platform enables customisation of tokenised products based on specific investment needs, facilitating risk diversification through fractional investments. We completed the inaugural transaction in minting a tokenised bond for a client in November 2024. This is a big step forward, not just for OCBC, but for the industry at large as it seeks to commercialise and scale the usage of tokenised assets.
We notched another 'first', becoming the first bank in Singapore with intraday institutional lending capabilities. This was accomplished using blockchain-based intraday Reverse Repurchase trades on J.P. Morgan's Digital Financing application, built on their Kinexys Digital Assets platform. With this capability, we can put excess intraday liquidity to work to maximise returns. Using the same platform opens up the opportunity to make Repurchase trades too. This means better liquidity resilience as we can borrow funds to meet pressing intraday liquidity needs.
In addition, our commitment to leveraging technology and innovation continued to transform our business operations. The adoption of cloud technology has also been pivotal in scaling our operations, enhancing our processing capabilities while optimising physical resources.
Commitment to Sustainability
Sustainability continued to be important for Global Markets as our Emissions Trading Desk, established in 2023, worked on expanding our product suite to assist corporate clients in managing their carbon footprints and meeting Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) requirements. We launched Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs), which are tradable certificates that represent the environmental benefits of renewable energy generation. They can be used as part of carbon offsetting strategies, allowing companies to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by supporting renewable energy projects. EACs support our own sustainability efforts as well.
Apart from EACs, we offer Compliance and Voluntary Carbon Credits. Within these categories, we are building out in different compliance markets and setting up the relevant registry accounts.
To further raise awareness of the importance of sustainability, our Research team started a Young Voices for Sustainability series that showcases inspiring youth narratives on the topic. These videos are amplified using our Telegram channel, where we regularly share research videos and podcasts.
We were awarded Top Investment House for Singapore banks in G3 bonds by The Asset Benchmark Research Awards.
Looking ahead
Looking ahead to 2025, we foresee a complex global economic landscape, including significant trade tariffs on Chinese exports. These developments could disrupt the current disinflation trend and affect monetary policy worldwide. While we expect disinflation to continue, the outlook does present greater uncertainty. Despite this, Global Markets remains focused on enhancing our customer franchise and fulfilling their hedging and investment needs. In doing so, it is important that we play to our strengths and find ways to support our customers as One Group – that is a differentiator that we want to capitalise on in the years ahead.