Bursa Malaysia is the world's biggest palm oil futures trading hub since 1980. The FCPO, the global price benchmark for the crude palm oil market, is a deliverable contract which is traded electronically on Bursa Malaysia’s trading platform.[9]
Crude palm kernel futures and crude palm oil futures are primarily traded on [[Bursa Malaysia] in Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) and US dollar denominated contracts. Their codenames are FPKO, FCPO and FUPO, respectively. Bursa Malaysia and CME Group had in August 2009 announced plans for crude palm oil futures to be electronically traded on the CME Globex.[10]CME Group will develop a US dollar-denominated, cash-settled contract using Bursa Malaysia settlements as its reference, at its Globex electronic platform in Chicago.[11][12]
Operating round the clock, the CME Globex trading system is at the heart of CME. Proposed in 1987, it was introduced in 1992 as the first global electronic trading platform for futures contracts. This fully electronic trading system allows market participants to trade from booths at the exchange or while sitting in a home or office thousands of miles away. When Globex was first launched, it used Reuters' technology and network. September 1998 saw the launch of the second generation of Globex using a modified version of the NSC trading system, developed by Paris Bourse for the MATIF (now Euronext). To connect to CME Globex, traders connect via Market Data Protocol (MDP) and iLink 2.0 for order routing.
Below is a non-exhaustive list of commodities exchanges around the world where palm oil futures is traded with different contract specifications:
Jakarta Futures Exchange launched trading of physical crude palm oil (CPO) contracts in June 2009. Indonesia’s Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries at the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy, Bayu Krisnamurthi, had emphasised that a physical market must be established before futures trading can begin.[13]
In October 2009, Indonesia plans to facilitate trading of crude palm oil and other raw materials on the Indonesia Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (ICDX).[14] In spite of being the world’s largest producer, Indonesia has been unable to set a palm oil benchmark price, with trading centred in neighbouring Bursa Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.
The Jakarta Futures Exchange, which was launched in 2000, started by offering crude palm oil and coffee futures but trading was “dormant” as operators have preferred to trade the palm oil contracts in Malaysia and coffee futures in London and New York, according to Edi Susmadi, a director of JFX. He attributed the failure to competition from Bursa Malaysia, and the low tech trading system. Max Ramajaya at Wilmar International, the world’s largest processor of palm oil, said: “When you trade on MDEX [Bursa Malaysia] you have better access to information about the market and more insight.
Back in June 2007, Singapore launched the Joint Asian Derivatives Exchange’s (JADE) US dollar-denominated CPO futures contract.[15] JADE was a joint venture between the Chicago Board of Trade (now CME Group) and the Singapore Exchange (SGX). The aim was to provide a fair and transparent platform for price discovery in CPO and allow traders to buy JADE CPO futures and CBOT soyabean oil futures concurrently to manage their edible oils price risk.
However, the JADE CPO futures failed to sustain. CME Group, which acquired CBOT and inherited its investment in JADE, sold its 50% stake to SGX in late 2007.
[16] According to reports, both the rubber and CPO futures offered by JADE have failed to attract volumes. JADE merged with the Singapore Commodity Exchange in 2008