EEX Group in Asia – the story so far
As a Global Commodities Exchange, EEX Group’s established presence in Europe, Asia and North America, ensures that it is ideally placed to promote and grow liquidity in the commodities sector worldwide with a expansive network of traders and brokers as well as a technical and regulatory offering which enables market participants across all time zones to access the benefits of the group’s trading and clearing services easily and efficiently.
Success in Asia has always been fundamental to EEX Group in realising its ambition to become the preferred Global Commodity Exchange. Over the past three years, EEX Group’s Asian business has seen a number of strategic developmental milestones which culminated in November 2018 with the launch of EEX Asia.
EEX Asia – the Asian Exchange of EEX Group
Based in Singapore, the EEX Asia portfolio currently offers futures and options contracts on freight and a range of seaborne commodities in addition to the recently launched EEX Group Japanese Power Derivatives product suite. All contracts are cleared through EEX Group’s primary clearing house, European Commodity Clearing (ECC) which was awarded Recognised Clearing House (RCH) status by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in March 2018.
Driving Freight Forward
In the past 12 months, EEX Group (EEX Asia) has seen unprecedented growth in its Dry Freight business, achieving double, triple and even quadruple digit increases in volume share (May ’20: 50.5% / May ’19: 3.48%), OI share (May ’20: 54% / May’19: 7.7%) and number of counterparties actively trading (+132%). Factors that have contributed to this success include a major increase in the member base, a significant rise in options trading, improvements in distribution and connectivity, continued engagement with the freight trading community and an enhanced product portfolio. As a result of this period of sustained organic growth in addition to the migration of freight open interest from Nasdaq Futures, Inc. (NFX), EEX Group (EEX Asia) has emerged to become a major player in freight, gaining the majority share of both Volume and OI in May ’20 and thereby overtaking the historical market leader to become the No.1 Exchange in Dry Freight Trading worldwide.
EEX Group – bringing Power expertise to Japan
EEX Group has a proven, 20-year track record in power trading, recording the largest power trading volume worldwide in 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively. In May ’20, EEX Group extended its global power product suite by offering Trade Registration services for the Japanese Power Derivatives market, marking an important milestone for EEX’s Power Derivatives portfolio and the Asian business of EEX Group as a whole. The Japan Power Derivatives product suite is the first Asian market area to be made available on both the EEX Power Derivatives platform and the EEX Asia Japan Power Portal in addition to being the first EEX Group product specifically built in conjunction with EEX Asia, for the Asian market. Since launching in May, volumes have continued to rise with EEX Group recording a total volume of 104,520 MWh in its first full month of trading and in doing so, exceeding the volume achieved on the domestic Power Futures Exchange in Japan.
Asian Ambition
In terms of EEX Asia’s ambition to succeed in Asia: if anything, it increases day by day. Everyone working on an initiative in Asia, whether permanently based in the Singapore or Tokyo offices, or as part of an ‘Asian’ project, is determined to grow the business in the region even further and in doing so, generate significant returns for EEX Group.