Press

Eurex, the international exchange organization, is further expanding its services for repo trading: As of March 5, 2001, equity-repo trading with Swiss blue-chip stocks will be initiated on the Eurex Repo trading platform, as the exchange reported on Monday.

The basket that can be deposited as collateral for equity repo trading comprises the 10 most liquid equities in the Swiss Market Index (SMI): ABB, Ciba Speciality Chemicals, Clariant, Credit Suisse Group, Nestlé, Novartis, Swiss Reinsure, Swisscom, UBS and Zurich Financial.

With the introduction of the equity repo basket, Eurex is expanding its line of products that can be deposited as collateral in the Swiss franc repo market. Eurex had already expanded the basket of securities acceptable as collateral at the end of February by introducing an additional General Collateral basket to include German Jumbo Pfandbrief issues, which are also accepted by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) as collateral for its repo auctions.

With the introduction of the expanded facility, Eurex is opening up its repo platform for collateralized funding business, thus underscoring the increasing importance of this market for interbank transactions. Eurex is thus leading the way in consolidating the collateralization of money-market transactions.