Since yesterday, Monday, Wiener Börse has had a separate segment for structured products (structured products.at). This change in the market segmentation was motivated by the growing interest in structured products, especially in certificates. In the past two-and-a-half years, the number of traded certificates on Wiener Börse has risen from almost 50 to just over 450. Wiener Börse has segmented its market into the equity market.at, bond market.at, otob market.at, structured products.at and other listings.at.
Certificates are basically debt securities issued by banks. The buyer is thus the creditor of the bank that issues the certificate in a form similar to bonds. In contrast to bonds though, investors do not want to earn interest, but rather to take part in a certain development in value of securities. Certificates give investors the right to take part in the development of the value of the underlying investment such as shares, indices or a commodity or currency. Depending on the terms of issue, Wiener Börse differentiates between investment certificates, bonus certificates, discount certificates, leverage certificates and other certificates.
"It is possible to find an investment product for every desired risk and for every market scenario. Raiffeisen Centrobank is currently the only Austrian investment bank that covers the entire universe of certificates", stressed Alfred-Michael Spiss, Member of the Board of Raiffeisen Centrobank AG. Mr. Spiss views certificates as good entry opportunity into the capital market: "Certificates are less expensive, simple, have flexible denominations and thus enable investing with small amounts", said Mr. Spiss.
Transparent, simple and inexpensive
"The new segment is the logical continuation of a customer-oriented market segmentation of Wiener Börse", explained Stefan Zapotocky, Member of the Board of Wiener Börse AG. Investors can obtain general information on certificates and on the specific certificates traded immediately and simply by accessing the price information system at Wiener Börse’s website (). "The introduction of the new segment helps to cut transaction costs and gives issuers an official exchange listing", said Mr. Zapotocky, listing the benefits for the issuers. This means that one can expect the currently very large volume of over-the-counter (OTC) trades in certificates trading do decrease with the launch of the new segment. "By year-end, the number of traded certificates should increase to 600", said Mr. Zapotocky.
This puts Austria in line with the European trend: On the EUWAX, the largest warrants and certificates exchange in Europe, the number of listed certificates is over 50,000 and monthly trading volumes hit over EUR 2.6bn in March, for example. In Germany as well, the certificates segment is steadily gaining market shares and posting net inflows.