Roll-out of Eurex’s Training & Education Initiative in Asia

Cooperation with The Chinese University of Hong Kong / “Trader Training Program” in Taiwan started

The international derivatives exchange Eurex today announced its plans to cooperate with The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) to set up the world’s first real-time finance trading laboratory on campus as a major part of its new Training & Education Initiative in Asia. Through this initiative, Eurex will become a founding member of CUHK’s trading laboratory and support the lab with historical and real-time market data for research and analysis. Additionally, Eurex will make a donation to the university and offer internships to CUHK students.

“We appreciate very much the kind support of all the founding sponsors including Eurex. With this finance trading laboratory in place, our students will be able to gain real life experiences as a trader. They can try their hands on volatility spreads, adapting hedging strategies and conducting quantitative research using real data,” says Professor van Put, Adjunct Professor, CUHK Business Faculty. “To begin with, the laboratory will first be tried out by our final year undergraduate students taking courses on options and derivatives in the coming academic year. The new facility is subsequently expected to play a more important role in the finance training of our MBA, MSc and other executive education programs”, added Professor Fan, Associate Dean, CUHK Business Faculty.

“This cooperation is an important element of Eurex’s Training & Education Initiative in Asia. With our new program, we aim to improve the knowledge and expertise of Asia-based investors about the European markets and products as well as to introduce popular and widely used products, trading strategies and trends”, said Michael Peters, member of the Eurex Executive Board. A major part of the trainings will be the area of program and algorithmic trading, he added.

In July 2010, Eurex introduced the “Trader Training Program” for professional traders in Taiwan, as part of the overall Initiative. The program is the first of its kind in Taiwan and is targeted towards new professional traders.

“It’s a big step for Taiwan’s traders to access the European futures and derivatives market through this training program. I think it would be also helpful for Taiwan’s futures market to become more globalized in the near future”, says the president of Security and Futures Institute (SFI), Mr. Wei–Lung Chen. SFI is the semi-governmental institution that is offering professional qualification tests and financial trainings for securities and futures markets in Taiwan.

Similar lectures will be offered to traders in Singapore, Hong Kong and Sydney later this year and in 2011. The trainings will be held by industry experts from trading companies, academic lecturers from universities and dedicated Eurex staff. Eurex will also cooperate with industry associations, universities and regulators in each financial center.

The Training & Education Initiative complements Eurex’s “Trader Development Program”. The extension of the program is designed to further support trading development in this region. This development program is aimed at traders who have not been active on Eurex before but want to expand their proprietary trading activities in Eurex products.