OREANDA-NEWS   The Moscow Exchange has been launching trading in futures contracts for the Turkish lira and the Hong Kong dollar since March. This will increase interest in the currencies of friendly countries that have already occupied a certain niche in the spot market. However, experts consider the appearance of the UAE dirhams on the stock exchanges to be more significant. Talks about their launch have been going on for more than a year, but have not yet reached a real embodiment. The Moscow Exchange is going to launch trading in settlement futures contracts for the Turkish lira—Russian ruble and Hong Kong dollar—Russian ruble currency pairs from March 1. Their launch on the stock exchange is associated with the growing interest of customers in these currencies and they believe that the new instruments will be of interest to both institutional and private investors.

Currently, the most popular currency futures contracts on the Moscow Stock Exchange remain USD/RUB and CNY/RUB. This year, the trading volumes of USD/RUB, as a rule, amounted to 50-100 billion rubles per day, CNY /RUB — 10-30 billion rubles per day. Now the leader in turnover among futures for the currencies of friendly countries is still the futures for the CNY/RUB exchange rate. Daily trading volumes with other contracts, in particular EUR/USD, EUR/RUB, rarely exceed 10 billion rubles.

According to market participants interviewed by Kommersant, the emergence of new futures should push the development of currency pairs of friendly jurisdictions. According to Nikita Silkin, head of the department of the Internet broker BCS World of Investments, investors will be able to use contracts in their strategies for protection against currency risk, arbitration, as well as to implement speculative ideas. The expert expects noticeable trading volumes in the first weeks and expects long-term interest from customers.