Eurex launches initiative to attract new participants

New incentive program lowers transaction and connection costs in the first year after admission

The international derivatives exchange Eurex announced today that it is to launch an enhanced incentive program to acquire new participants. The “Eurex Membership Incentive 2009” initiative is directed at all potential Eurex participants worldwide.

Michael Peters, member of the Eurex Executive Board, said, “With our extended incentive initiative, we are optimizing the terms of access and the trading conditions at Eurex for our new members.”

The new initiative is valid with retroactive effect for newly admitted customers as of 1 January 2009. It comprises several measures for the first year of membership in Eurex. As a general rule, the minimum transaction fee of EUR 9,000 per quarter is waived for each new participant. Moreover, depending on the extent of trading activities, transaction costs and also, for the first-time, connection costs will be waived; the savings potential per new participant ranges from EUR 27,000 to EUR 54,000 for the first year of membership. Participants can select from three different packages which are tailored to their trading activities and selected connection model.

Additionally, newly admitted participants with a focus on algorithmic trading will be reimbursed for the costs of the simulation environments for the Enhanced Broadcast Solution and Enhanced Transaction Solution high-speed interfaces for a period of up to six months. This enables these clients to modify their trading algorithms for the Eurex system early and to intensively test the interfaces.

The new initiative replaces the Global Connectivity Program. The global Eurex liquidity network was significantly expanded within the framework of this program, which ran in 2007 and 2008. 43 new participants, which traded almost 157 million contracts, were connected in 2008 alone.