Against the backdrop of sanctions, St. Petersburg Exchange plans to develop a derivatives market with settlements in rubles

St. Petersburg Exchange, after strict American sanctions imposed against it, is going to return to the derivatives market. It was this segment that the exchange developed from the moment of its founding, but then reoriented itself to the foreign securities market, which had now become virtually inaccessible to it. Experts believe that the chances of success of the new project are low, since the margins of the derivatives market are low, and they will also have to compete with the developed derivatives market of the Moscow Exchange and go into niche segments.

According to a Kommersant source close to the St. Petersburg Exchange, against the backdrop of the imposed sanctions (see Kommersant on November 3), the trading platform will switch to the development of a derivatives market with settlements in rubles. Kommersant’s interlocutor admits that the launch of the options market will be announced before the end of the week. Two Kommersant sources in the stock market confirmed that they know about the exchange’s plans to develop a derivatives market, including options. Kommersant’s interlocutor at a large brokerage company noted that the exchange is going to launch “many futures, including for foreign shares.”

In fact, this means that the exchange is returning to its roots. It was founded in 1997 (under the name St. Petersburg Stock Exchange) for trading in derivatives instruments. In the early 2000s, Evgeny Serdyukov came to the exchange and headed it from 2012 to 2021. Here he was involved in the development of the derivatives market, including the FORTS section of the RTS exchange (which later became part of the MICEX, now the Moscow Exchange). In November 2023, Mr. Serdyukov again headed the St. Petersburg Exchange (see “Kommersant” dated November 8). Therefore, the accumulated experience and competencies will allow the exchange to launch derivatives market products, says independent financial analyst Andrei Barkhota.

However, it will be quite difficult to compete with the Moscow Exchange in this segment. The monthly trading volume on the derivatives market this year on average exceeded 6.5 trillion rubles, and in the fall the average was almost 8.4 trillion rubles. The most popular instruments are those whose underlying assets are exchange commodities (gas, oil, gold) and currencies. In addition, the exchange is actively developing derivatives instruments for securities. The St. Petersburg Exchange may move into more niche assets – for example, futures for ferrous metals, cement and other assets in which investors may be interested, says Dmitry Alexandrov, managing director of Ivolga Capital.

The St. Petersburg Exchange and the Moscow Exchange did not respond to Kommersant’s requests. At the same time, market participants note that the derivatives market is not a very marginal segment; commissions there are very low. According to the reporting of the Moscow Exchange, commission income from this segment amounts to 11–13% of total commission income. Therefore, according to Capital Lab partner Evgeny Shatov, the launch of the derivatives segment is unlikely to be able to cover the shortfall in income of the St. Petersburg Exchange in the medium term. He lists the main risks of launching this segment: lack of sufficient demand, less investor appetite for such instruments, regulatory restrictions. At the same time, says a Kommersant source at a large brokerage company, in the event of the launch of futures on foreign securities, there remains “a problem with overlap (purchase and sale of the underlying asset), including among trading participants.” “Using the example of the Moscow Exchange, we see that a limited number of instruments are of real interest, and specific contracts remain illiquid,” points out Mr. Alexandrov.

However, wishes alone are not enough to launch trading. To circulate futures contracts on the stock exchange, it is necessary to develop standard conditions on which they will be concluded; according to the law on the securities market, they must be agreed upon with the regulator, says Mikhail Zhuzhalov, senior lawyer at Tomashevskaya & Partners. The Central Bank clarified that the rules of organized trading and clearing rules are subject to registration within 30 days. After this, the trade organizer must disclose them on its website. However, the regulator has not yet received “such requests.”

Ksenia Kulikova