Eurex Definition

The Eurex is the largest futures and options market in the world, dealing primarily with European-based derivatives. The Eurex offers low-cost electronic access to people connected from 700 locations around the world. The company is public and is owned by Deutsche Börse AG, an exchange organization that provides investors, institutions and financial institutions with access to global capital markets.

The Eurex was founded in 1998 as a joint partnership between Deutsche Börse AG and SIX Swiss Exchange. It was a time when the traditional open outcry system was being taken over by the emerging electronic trading systems of the time. Deutsche Börse became the sole owner of the Eurex in 2012 when it purchased all of SIX's Eurex shares.

The Eurex was one of the first exchanges to offer electronic trading to users. This was in contrast to the traditional trading styles that were still prevalent at the time in Europe, including open outcry and pit trading.

The products that trade on this exchange range from German and Swiss debt instruments to European stocks and STOXX indexes. Along with facilitating trade, EUREX also provides contract settlements. The exchange settles more than 1.6 million of these contracts per year. Its fully electronic network is considered one of the best and most innovative fully electronic markets in the world.

Contracts and transactions that are settled on the Eurex are cleared through Eurex Clearing, which serves roughly 200 members in 19 different countries.

The exchange offers a variety of products including interest rate derivatives, equity derivatives, dividend derivatives, foreign exchange derivatives, commodity derivatives and property derivatives to name a few.

Eurex uses a technology called T7, which was developed by Deutsche Börse Group. The system boasts low latency. Its features include streamlined processing and reporting, reduced time-to-market and improved functionality.

It is also used by the European Energy Exchange (EEX) and Powernext for derivatives trading. Cash trading is also done through the T7 system by the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE) and the Vienna Stock Exchange (WBAG).

As of 2019, key management personnel at Eurex included:

• Thomas Book, CEO, Eurex Frankfurt AG, who was appointed to his position of chief executive officer of Eurex Frankfurt AG in 2016. Before this, Book was the CEO of Eurex Clearing AG between 2013 and 2016. He joined Deutsche Börse Group in 1995 and was part of the team that founded Eurex.
• Erik Tim Müller, CEO, Eurex Clearing AG, who has been part of the Eurex Clearing executive team since 2013. Before being appointed to his position, he was a managing director with the Deutsche Börse Group, where he was responsible for corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions.