Zambia’s derivatives market to start trading

LUSAKA. – Zambia’s Bond and Derivatives Exchange is set to begin trading in its first product on November 5 after it signed on three clearing members, chief executive officer Allan Thomson said.Zambia National Commercial Bank Plc, the country’s biggest lender, the local unit of BancABC, the Botswana-based bank and Finance Bank

Zambia Ltd are the members, he said by phone yesterday from Knysna, on South Africa’s southern coast.
“We’re really just putting the plumbing in place,” Thomson said.

Badex, as the exchange is called, earlier planned to start trading a dollar-kwacha futures contract by September. That target was missed because of delays in setting up the first derivatives exchange in Africa in more than two decades, Thomson said.

The exchange will provide a currency-hedging mechanism for companies in Africa’s biggest copper producer, after the government banned using foreign currencies last year. – Bloomberg.