PDEx honors banks

The Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp.(PDEx) has conferred the First Annual Achievement Awards to five banks at ceremonies held at the Filipinas Heritage Library in Makati recently.

The top five most active trading participants for 2005 are Security Banking Corp., the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI), the China Banking Corp., Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. (HSBC), and the Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. (Metrobank).

The awards will be an annual affair held during the first quarter of the year following the previous annual performance of participants.

In its maiden year, the awards are based on the peso value of trades executed by the trading participants in the inter-dealer negotiated dealing platform of the fixed income exchange.

In the future, the PDEx will identify other criteria for the awards based on the participants’ contribution to the advancement of the capital market reform agenda. According to PDEx, the awards will eventually be expanded to include categories for best market-making, best trading house for private securities, best securities sales house, and others as PDEx products and platforms are activated.

The PDEx is a member of the PDS Group headed by Cesar EA Virata, president and chief executive officer Vicente Castillo, and PDEx president and cief operating officer Cesar Crisol.

Crisol said that "the PDEx Achievement Awards confirms the ability of participants to face the growing demands of a changing market… providing an impetus to keep improvements going in developing the local capital market".

For his part, Castillo underscored the role of participants and said that the awards is a "recognition of their efforts in providing liquidity through their trading and market making activities." He also noted "their commitment in ensuring the validity of (our) interest rate benchmarks through dealt trades."