SCOACH LAUNCHES FOREIGN CURRENCY PRODUCTS

Posted September 11, 2009

FRANKFURT – The Scoach certificate exchange has introduced trading of foreign currency products, including the US dollar, Swiss franc and Swedish krona, with HSBC Trinkaus, a German private banking unit of HSBC Group, becoming the first user to list foreign currency-denominated certificates on the exchange.

To start, the exchange is offering two Swiss franc products, a capped bonus certificate and a protect index bond on the Swiss SMI exchange barometer. The exchange is also offering investors with US dollar accounts, the capped bonus certificate and protect index bond on the S&P 500, both denominated in US dollars. Scoach is a joint venture of Deutsche Börse AG and the Swiss SIX Group.

“These issues are not new product structures, they are process innovations, as was the case with the intraday issues we introduced a few months ago,” says Heiko Weyand, Head of Product at HSBC Trinkaus. “Because the securities are listed in the currency of their respective underlyings, it is easier for investors to monitor their performance than if they were listed in euros.”

The foreign currency products may be of interest to investors with accounts in US dollars or Swiss francs who wish to trade via a German exchange. Since the products are traded on the Scoach certificate exchange, they are subject to German stock exchange regulators. “The supervision of trading provides additional security for investors,” says Christian Reuss, CEO of Scoach Europa AG. “Trading via an exchange is often essential to asset managers in particular.”