Eurex Annual Derivatives Forum: meeting market requirements with innovation

• Dr. Jan-Carl Plagge, Head of Applied Research
  

This year’s Eurex Derivatives Forum event kicked off with a welcome speech by Michael Peters, Deputy CEO of Eurex. Peters talked about the necessity of getting the EU back on track, the uncertain market situation and the importance of meeting these challenges through innovative solutions.

In the following keynote speech, David Milleker, Chief Economist at Union Investment, addressed the macroeconomic situation in Europe and thus paved the way for the ensuing panel discussion entitled “Interest yields and the end of quantitative easing.”

The high-profile panel of industry experts agreed that the interest rate level is likely to remain low, entailing all the familiar effects on the bond market. This is a market where Eurex and STOXX Ltd. have recently collaborated to introduce the Corporate Bond Index Future, the first listed futures contract on a European corporate bond index. The contract is based on the EURO STOXX 50® Index and is, amongst other uses, a flexible hedging instrument for the buy- and sell-side.

RFQ platform for complex orders
Another Eurex innovation was presented by Randolf Roth, Member of the Executive Board of Eurex: an RFQ platform, initially for fixed-income options, which transfers the pricing mechanism for large and complex orders – traditionally a phone transaction – to electronic trading.

Amongst other things, the new platform will help customers meet the best execution requirements in compliance with MiFID II as of December 2017.

Another highlight was the second, extremely practical keynote speech of the afternoon, delivered by Thomas Richter, Managing Director at BVI (the German Investment Funds Association). He explained how the BVI safeguards German buy-side interests worldwide.

During the following panel discussion, “Brexit and euro clearing,” the experts agreed that Brexit negotiations will most likely continue to proceed at a slow pace, which means that the uncertain situation for customers will remain.

A hard Brexit, although undesirable, remains a possibility. Matthias Graulich, Chief Strategy Officer at Eurex Clearing, and Burkhard Rinne, Partner at Linklaters, discussed the possible effects of this development on the markets. The discussion was moderated by Markus Röhrig, also Partner at McKinsey.

The afternoon ended with a final panel discussion on the topic of “Will innovation in listed derivatives serve to drive growth?” Nicolas Kageneck from Eurex moderated what turned out to be a lively debate.

 

Featured Indices

EURO STOXX 50® Corporate Bond Index

EURO STOXX 50® Index