ASX awarded "Exchange of the Year" in structured products

ASX is proud to have been awarded "Exchange of the Year" by Structured Products magazine.
 
ASX's innovation in products, market rules, services and fees was recognised by the panel of judges. This innovation contributed to the near doubling of warrant trading activity between January 2007 and October 2007 to almost A$1.3 billion per month.

Highlighted in the report was the number of innovative new warrants listed on ASX, including JP Morgan’s Divided Advance Resettable Warrant Instalments (Darwins) and ABN AMRO's Minis. Aaron Stambulich, head of structured products and warrants at ABN AMRO Group, Australia and New Zealand commented "ASX has been pivotal in assisting ABN AMRO bring the Minis product to the Australian market."

In addition, Barclays Global Investors' listing of an initial eight international exchange traded funds as part of its global iShares program in October 2007 was also recognised as a key innovation in the Australian market.

ASX was again commended for introducing the first exchange traded CFDs. ASX CFDs are the first CFDs to be listed on any exchange in the world. The market is still in its early days but has already had 30 market participants enter the market and trading volumes reach 900,000 contracts per day. This is a very rapid growth since its launch in November 2007.

The ASX Aqua project was also recognised for its innovation. Aqua, due to come into effect later this year, will result in a major revamp of the listed structured products market allowing a much wider range of products to list and much greater flexibility for both product issuers and investors.
 
For more information on the Structured Products 2007 Awards for Excellence in Asia, visit the website.