Singapore Exchange hired Tng Kwee Lian from United Overseas Bank to be head of fixed income as part of a project to spur Asian capital markets.

Tng, who joins later this month from UOB’s asset management unit, will drive initiatives including promoting bond trading to individual investors, the bourse said in a statement today. The exchange plans to halve the time taken to approve bond listings. It will seek to encourage companies to add to the 1,229 bonds already listed on the bourse, said President Gan Seow Ann.

 

“Demand for bonds is very encouraging,” Gan said in a phone interview today. “We are looking to leverage on our position as an Asian gateway.”

Singapore dollar-denominated bond sales jumped to $14.2 billion this year from $6.3 billion in the same period of 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

State investment company Temasek Holdings has been the island’s most prolific borrower, the data show, raising $1 billion last month from 4.2% bonds maturing in 2050.

 

To promote bond investing among individual investors, the exchange will introduce debt instruments in smaller trading lots of $1,000 instead of the S$100,000 currently offered by government and corporate borrowers to institutional investors, Gan said. The smaller trading lots will be introduced by the first quarter of 2011, he said.

 

“We want to encourage a wider group of issuers to come in and list their bonds and also to encourage trading in some of these bonds,” Gan said.