The WGT S.A., or Warsaw Commodities Exchange S.A. (the “WGT”), is a market operator headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. The WGT operates a spot commodity market, a futures market and a stand-alone clearing house. The WGT’s markets have a specific focus on the Central and Eastern European Emerging Market geography. Founded in July of 1995 as a shares company, the WGT has continuously operated the spot market since 1995, and the futures market and clearing house since 1999.
The WGT operates the largest and oldest spot commodity market for trading soft commodities in Poland. Since its founding in 1995, the spot market on the WGT has been the largest physical wholesale market in Poland for agricultural commodities. During the 19+ years of spot market operations, peak trading volumes for products such as milling wheat have reached levels as high as 33% of that year’s domestic production. These are trading volumes that were traded on the WGT spot platform and settled through the WGT settlements system.
The WGT operates a futures market that is classified as a “non-public” (Over the Counter) market in compliance with domestic law. The WGT currently lists contracts in foreign exchange, short-term interest rates, fixed income financial instruments and soft commodity products. Financial futures listed for trading on the WGT include futures and options on futures on six EM currency pairs (USD/PLN, EUR/PLN, CHF/PLN, GBP/PLN, EUR/HUF, EUR/CZK), futures on all the major currency pairs, futures on short term interest rate products (three-month WIBOR), and futures on Republic of Poland government debt (Two, Five and Ten Year Treasury Note futures). Commodity futures contracts currently listed for trading on the WGT include milling wheat futures, feed wheat futures, and live hog futures. All transactions entered into on the WGT futures market are cleared through the WGT Clearing House.
The WGT owns and operates its own stand-alone clearing-house, the IR WGT S.A (the “WGT CH”). The WGT CH was designed to conform to standards commonly accepted by the international futures industry. The WGT CH is the only clearing entity in Poland that acts as a central counter-party to its clearing members under a novation process, clearing across 10 currencies daily.