MSCI has signed a new licensing agreement with Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) to introduce futures and options contracts based on a suite of MSCI indexes across global developed and emerging markets.

The agreement expands MSCI’s partnership with SGX to cover flagship global and regional equity benchmarks, single-country developed and emerging market indexes, and emerging market Asia sector indexes.

Henry Fernandez, chairman and CEO of MSCI, said: ” This agreement reflects our commitment to ensuring that MSCI’s most critical benchmarks are accessible to investors wherever they manage risk, and we are pleased to expand our long-standing partnership with SGX to make our global and regional indexes available to institutional investors.”

Loh Boon Chye, chief executive officer, SGX Group, added: “SGX has built a distinct capability in creating markets around the exposures that global investors need. This is about taking the benchmarks that matter to institutional portfolios and building the infrastructure that makes them tradable, liquid and risk managed.”

“As portfolios are increasingly managed across regions, themes and benchmark suites, our comprehensive MSCI suite gives investors a broader platform to manage global equity risk through one trusted venue.”

The agreement is structured to support institutional investors managing multi-regional equity portfolios through a centrally cleared venue in the Asia-Pacific time zone.