Deutsche Börse Group’s derivatives trading and clearing business confirmed that it is launching Quantitative Investment Strategies (QIS) index futures on 1 December 2025, adding to its efforts to futurize over-the-counter products.

Eurex’s “futurization” strategy involves offering products that were previously only available over-the-counter (OTC) in a listed, centrally cleared format, which expands reach as well as increasing capital and operational efficiency.

In a memo on 27 Nov 2025 Eurex confirmed that systematic QIS index Futures will launch at the beginning of December. The recent U.S. government shutdown and the impact on the operations of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) meant that the previously announced launch had to be delayed.

Robbert Booij, chief executive of Eurex, told Markets Media in November this year that one of the biggest trends is clients asking for more bespoke products. Therefore, Eurex is launching systematic QIS index futures in partnership with Premialab, the provider of data and analytics specializing in systematic QIS indices.

QIS indices use mathematical models that combine active and passive investment in comparison to other traditional indices.Market participants can gain exposure and/or hedge against identified themes such as macro and factors such as AI or value.

The new contracts provide an alternative to investing via over-the-counter swaps based on rules-based proprietary indices by using standardized, centrally cleared futures with cross-margining potential.

As part of the futurization strategy, Eurex launched total return futures (TRFs) in 2016, which provide the return of an index without the need to hold the whole of the index. TRF volumes have significantly increased year over year, according to Booij.

Zubin Ramdarshan, co-head derivatives products & markets at Eurex, told Markets Media that the exchange has had varied experiences with OTC moving as a result of futurization.

“The dividend swap market and total return futures migrated 100% to Eurex once we launched contracts,” he added

New contracts

Ramdarshan continued that the business is always looking at adjacent markets and  also where assets under management are heading, which is away from traditional market cap-weighted indices and towards more bespoke solutions.

“When we tested the waters with thematic indices, we learned that every end-customer has a slightly different view of the methodology,” he added. “QIS allows voices from different perspectives as we don’t force our clients into a standardized view of a theme.”

Premialab has estimated that the over-the-counter QIS market in 2024 was about $700bn and will be close to $1trillion at the end of this year, according to Ramdarshan.

He said clients in the OTC world have taken a great interest in the listed solution, and as a result Eurex will see some migration towards the exchange. Ramdarshan explained that the listed environment shines a light on settlement prices, spread, term structure and draws in new participants who are data hungry. The data also opens up the strategies to quant fund participants.

Elias Benzina, head of EMEA custom baskets at Goldman Sachs, said in a statement: “Eurex’s futures offering has the potential to foster deeper market adoption for thematic strategies, benefiting both our clients and the wider ecosystem.”

The three new index futures contracts are based on two indexes from Société Générale’s Fundamental Quality European Index Futures and SGI Value European Index Futures, and one from Solactive, the Make EU Great Again Index Futures. Premialab acts as a third party data and analytics provider to Eurex and Eurex Clearing for all systematic QIS indices.

Growth

Eurex has been working with Premialab for a couple of years. Elena Marchidann, global product lead total return derivatives at Eurex, described Premialab as the leader in the field in data on systematic QIS indices.

She told Markets Media that PermiaLab has a deep network of sell side and buy side clients who requested a listed futures wrapper to democratize access to these strategies. The new QIS offering is aimed as a listing and distribution platform to attract institutional investors like pension funds and asset managers who do not trade OTC and prefer to trade listed products due to their high transparency.

Marchidann said: “We think QIS is the next thing in the futurization space after we successfully launched products including dividend futures, total return futures and baskets.”

Careful consideration was given to put in place a robust risk management framework with transparent and clear criteria for the potential index providers, she added. As a result, the index providers know that if they create a strategy, it is likely to be accepted for the offering.

“These strategies have quite a short time to market, so once a participant is admitted, they can send us requests to list further eligible strategies on a more agile basis,” added Marchidann.

When a bank requests a futures contract based on a QIS index, they will also act as a sponsor trading participant and support the strategy and distribution of the product. The partnership will work throughout the whole cycle of the product.

Marchidann explained that it becomes more efficient for the sell side to trade listed QIS contracts as they will benefit from portfolio margining with all their other equity and index derivatives positions at Eurex, so they will be able to provide more competitive prices to buy-side clients.

Eurex is launching the offering with an index wrapper of long-only strategies based on European shares from an eligible benchmark (e.g. STOXX Europe 600).

“We are starting with baby steps because the QIS space is huge and very diverse,” added Marchidann. “We wanted a simple, plug-and-play type of product.”

She said Eurex has already received interest to expand to QIS indices based on global indices, and long and short contracts. As a result, the business is working internally to enhance its risk management capabilities to support more complex strategies (e.g. long and short, based on derivatives and other asset classes).”

Eurex may also include the addition of volatility-targeted indices, and derivative overlays designed for specific investment goals. The offering could also be expanded to eligible assets to include global equities, multi-asset indices and other asset classes, subject to regulatory approval.

Ramdarshan said: “This is just the beginning of our journey and our long- term ambition is to launch cross-asset class strategies.”