MATIF

The international futures market in France ( FR. Marché à terme international de France - MATIF ) is a stock exchange created in 1985 to protect French enterprises from changes in interest rates and currency fluctuations, on which they began to conduct operations with long-term government bonds. MATIF is currently part of the NYSE Euronext international exchange.

After World War II, seven stock exchanges operated in France with the absolute dominance of the Paris Bourse. In 1988, all French exchanges merged into one organization. In 1986, the CAC electronic trading system was installed on the Paris Stock Exchange. As a result, independent regional exchanges formally existed, but in reality there was only one exchange - Paris. A reflection of this situation was the name of the organization - Society of French Exchanges - Paris Exchange (Société des Bourses Francaises - Paris Bourse). The transition from traditional voice trading freed up the main trading floor, where transactions were made for many decades. It was dismantled on July 13, 1987, and two new exchanges began to work in its place: the futures MATIF and the optional MONEP ^[1] .

The law of July 11, 1985 created the futures exchange MATIF SA. MATIF was created to protect French enterprises from changes in interest rates and exchange rate fluctuations; operations with long-term government bonds were initially started on it. This market was initially controlled and regulated by the central bank ^[2] .

In 1988, urgent transactions with goods (including coffee, cocoa and sugar) were also included in the number of operations conducted on this market . Futures contracts for sugar, potatoes and coffee were insignificant and could not compete with similar London markets. That is, a small volume of operations and limited participants deprived the coffee and cocoa beans markets on the MATIF Paris Exchange of international status ^[3] .

The instruments available on MATIF included futures contracts on long-term (7-10 years) bonds , interest rates , long-term contracts on the French franc, ECU (after the introduction of the new single currency - on the euro), contracts on the CAC-40 index, foreign currency, futures contracts for sugar, rapeseed oil, wheat, potatoes and coffee.

MATIF received 6.25 francs for each operation to buy or sell fixed-term contracts, which allowed it to increase its own funds to 800 million francs. In 1989, the Paris Exchange canceled fixed commissions. Since then, the value of the commission is established by agreement of the client and the securities company. In 1993, 72 million contracts passed through MATIF.

In the 1990s, the exchange showed very high growth rates. So, only in 1992 the number of contracts concluded on it increased by 50%. In 1994, the total number of contracts for exchange indices alone amounted to 7.5 million.

In Europe in the 1990s there was a competition between the British LIFFE , the French MATIF and the German EURUREX. There was a duplication not only in the time zone, but also in the proposed tools. For example, both LIFFE and EUREKS offer contracts for German bonds. For reasons of competition, LIFFE was forced to postpone the start of contract operations to compensate for the hourly time difference between the UK and Germany. LIFFE and MATIF duplicated each other in the same way under several contracts.

In 1997, the MATIF exchange ranked 4th in terms of trading volume of futures contracts, futures for government bonds of France.

In 1998, the trading floor was closed and the exchange completely switched to computer trading. In the fall of 1998, the Paris Exchange reached an agreement with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ( CME ) to transfer an electronic trading system for off-premises trading. In turn, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange transferred its settlement settlement system. Thus, since 1999, all Paris markets and CME have been operating in the same technological space.

In the same 1999, the Paris Exchange was formally merged with two derivative exchanges MATIF SA, MONEP SA (in reality they were already closely connected with it, and MONEP was its subsidiary), as well as the so-called New Market. The new organization is called ParisBourseSBF SA.

On September 22, 2000, the stock exchanges of France, the Netherlands and Belgium merged. The new exchange is called Euronext .

In 2001, Euronext NV acquired the English LIFFE (the official name of the exchange after the merger became Euronext.liffe), and in the field of LIFFE (Euronext. LIFFE), since 2003, the derivative operations of all derivative exchanges of four countries have moved. That is, all products traded on MATIF and MONEP began to be traded on Euronext.liffe.

In February 2002, the Lisbon Exchange also joined the Euronext. The four exchanges that make up Euronext are its subsidiaries : Euronext Paris SA, Euronext Amsterdam NV, Euronext Brussels SA / NV, Euronext Lisbon SA.

Despite the presence of five exchanges included in Euronext, it is a single organization with a common trading system, a single depository and a clearing house.

In 2007, the unification processes in the field of exchange business went even further. Euronext has merged with NYSE, the world's leading exchange. But really, both the NYSE and Euronext work autonomously. They still have completely different trading systems, different members, different traded instruments and settlement systems. In addition to shares (French and foreign companies), government and corporate bonds, warrants , investment certificates, exchange funds (les trackers) are also traded on the stock exchange.

For many years in France for residents there was a special tax on operations with shares and convertible bonds (impôt de bourse), levied both on the buyer and on the seller at a rate of 0.3% for the transaction amount of less than 7667 euros and in the form of a fixed amount of 23 euros for transactions with a large amount. The tax did not apply to non-residents engaged in operations on the exchange. Only in April 2008 was it canceled ^[1] .