As part of this preparation, Tim Grant will stand down and hand over the reins to David Newns, an international capital market expert with a strong background in the regulated financial services industry. Newns’s mandate will be to take SDX seamlessly into its next phase of full operations and growth.
According to Thomas Zeeb, Chairman SDX and Member of the Executive Board, SIX, “Once we receive regulatory approval we will need to be ready to ramp up operations, client onboarding and deployment. As with any infrastructure, success will be defined by scale, and our challenge going forward will be to develop the relationships and partnerships – ecosystem, if you will – that will enable us to offer our clients what they are really looking for in challenging times: New services and products for their clients.”
“We have received the draft FMI licenses for SIX Digital Exchange AG and SDX Trading AG from FINMA and have responded within the consultation period with no concerns or issues so that we expect the formalization of the licenses to follow shortly. Tim and his team have defined a roadmap for SDX to both build out the existing ecosystem and expand its franchise further as a fully-regulated operational infrastructure for the digital securities markets of the future” says Zeeb.
One of the key changes in this next phase is the arrival of David Newns who, subject to Finma approval, will take over the leadership of SDX on 6 October 2021.
Newns brings with him a track record in the key spaces in which SIX operates – mission critical infrastructure, service-driven application development for banks and digital assets, and an understanding of how nascent markets are created and brought to maturity.
According to Zeeb, “I thoroughly enjoyed working with Tim and his team at SDX and now look forward to working with David as we take SDX into the next stage of maturity and development. David brings with him the background and experience to take us forward and extend the reach of the SDX platform throughout the industry.”
According to Newns, “I believe that this is the perfect moment for our industry to redefine how it engages with its clients and stakeholders and, in turn, empowers them to serve their clients. SDX is in the ideal industry sweet-spot to achieve this and I’m looking forward to driving its further growth and development.”
