EFG Hermes UAE Begins Market-Making on Dubai Financial Market
The brokerage will quote continuous two-sided prices on DFM-listed securities, part of a push to deepen order books and narrow spreads.
Tariq Benali Tariq Benali covers business and corporate news across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted, tracking the deals, leadership moves and regulatory shifts behind the region's companies. tariq@anecdoted.com
EFG Hermes UAE has begun offering market-making and liquidity provision on the Dubai Financial Market, a step the firm says is meant to make trading more efficient, deepen order books and help prices reflect available information across listed securities.
What the service does
Market makers quote buy and sell prices continuously during the trading session. That steady presence gives other participants a counterparty when they want to trade, which in practice tends to tighten the gap between the best bid and the best offer and to improve how orders are filled. The DFM runs a market-maker programme built around the same goals: orderly trading in its listed securities and enough confidence among investors that those securities are easy to buy and sell.
EFG Hermes UAE is regulated in the UAE. The launch on Monday widens its capital markets business and reinforces the role it plays in linking local companies and investors with capital from outside the region, the company said in a statement.
Exchange and firm comment
Khalifa Rabba, chief operating officer of the DFM, said the exchange welcomed EFG Hermes as a market maker and described the addition as a sign of how the market's ecosystem is evolving, with institutional liquidity provision taking on a larger part in keeping trading efficient.
Rabba said the firm's involvement would help sustain two-sided pricing across listed securities throughout the session, lift execution quality, and reinforce Dubai's standing as a centre for capital markets.
Ahmed Waly, global head of brokerage at EFG Hermes, framed the move as a deliberate widening of the firm's platform. He said it pairs execution technology with the firm's reach across the region, with the aim of improving liquidity and price discovery for clients based in the Middle East and abroad.
Technology and client reach
Amr ElShamy, who leads electronic trading and execution services at EFG Hermes, said the firm's electronic trading infrastructure was built to meet the speed and reliability that market-making requires. The service will quote two-sided prices continuously for both institutional and retail clients, he said.
Raymond Wasef, head of market making and liquidity provision, said the offering sits alongside the firm's wider brokerage and investment banking work, which includes research, corporate access and capital markets advisory. He argued that deeper and more liquid markets tend to draw in more participants, and that the resulting increase in activity feeds further participation — a self-reinforcing cycle.
Background on the group
EFG Hermes is the investment banking arm of EFG Holding, a financial services group with operations in six countries. Its activities span advisory work, asset management, securities brokerage, research and private equity.
