For the second year in a row the prestigious award for ‘Best Structured Products and Derivatives Exchange’ at the SRP Europe 2021 awards was given to the Swiss Stock Exchange. André Buck, Global Head Sales & Relationship Management, accepted the award as part of a virtual ceremony on 3 March 2021.
“Being named Best Structured Products and Derivatives Exchange is a great honor and proves our capabilities to deliver for our clients by ensuring continuous innovation and by providing fresh thinking. Even in a year as challenging as 2020,” commented André Buck.
SRP Europe is the longest-running Structured Products and Derivatives Conference in the world and the largest gathering of alternative investment professionals dedicated to the growth of Europe's structured products industry. In its 18th year, SRP Europe 2021, brought together leaders from across the European market to produce an action plan for the future of wealth. On 1-4 March 2021, 400 key decision-makers came together to discuss the industry’s latest trends and challenges.
A Vision for 2021
In the Keynote Panel Discussion ‘Moving past the pandemic: a vision for 2021’ on the opening day André Buck and four other panelists discussed the key lessons the structured products market has taken from 2020 and how the market has adapted its offering for this year. In the second part of the panel they discussed key trends, new pay-outs, underlyings and structures which we could expect to see in 2021.
Switzerland: Largest Derivatives Market in Europe
With a volume of CHF 204 billion assets under custody (SNB, 11.2020), the Swiss derivatives market is the largest in Europe. To serve the needs of this market, the Swiss Stock Exchange offers sophisticated, electronic trading in structured products with a focus on transparency, efficiency and – with active market controls which ensure that all trades are in line with the market – the highest levels of investor protection.
Currently over 41,000 structured products from 21 Swiss and international issuers are listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange, and 2020 ended as a record year: trading turnover reached CHF 22,6 billion (+27.3%), with 898,304 trades (+67.8%) and 60,975 new product listings (+43.8%).
For CONNEXOR, the world-wide unique reference data platform, it also proved to be a year of records: 1,36 million (+28%) newly issued structured products and almost 17 million product updates with a total of 43 issuers (+5).
“Competition Brings Innovation”
In addition, the Swiss Stock Exchange has now become the world’s leading regulated marketplace for products with crypto-currencies as underlying, with currently 101 products (66 structured products, 35 ETPs) from 7 issuers (see Crypto Products Report, February 2021).
In 2020, trading turnover passed the 1-billion CHF mark, establishing a new record at CHF 1,1 billion. This record – for the year – was surpassed in February 2021 alone, when trading turnover reached CHF 1.2 billion in a single month..
While the current high investor demand for crypto currencies fuels this recent growth, André Buck points out that there are also fundamental reasons for this growth on the Swiss Stock Exchange. In addition to the sophisticated investment community in Switzerland the exchange itself works closely with the financial industry to create a diversified, competitive – yet regulated – market and provides an infrastructure to investors for them to trade in a diverse range of products and gain access to the crypto world.