Bursa Malaysia - Palm Oil Futures

Palm Oil Futures

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.

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.

Below is a non-exhaustive list of commodities exchanges around the world where palm oil futures is traded with different contract specifications:

• MDEX: Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange
• DC: Dalian Commodity Exchange
• NCDEX: India's National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange

In August 2009, Bursa Malaysia launched Bursa Suq Al-Sila', the world's first Internet commodities trading platform with crude palm oil (CPO) as its underlying asset that is syariah-compliant. Bursa Suq Al-Sila', formerly known as Commodity Murabaha House, facilitates commodity-based Islamic financing and investment transactions under the Syariah principles of Murabahah, Tawarruq and Musaw-wamah. Under the Bursa Suq Al-Sila concept, the bank buys a commodity from a supplier such as a CPO producer at a principal amount, and sells it to a customer at a profit. The customer then sells back the commodity to the spot market for cash. This initiative is spearheaded by the Malaysia International Islamic Finance Centre.

Among the plantation signatories are Boustead Estate Agency Bhd, Genting Plantations Bhd, IOI Corp Bhd and Sime Darby Bhd. The financial institutions include Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) banks Al Rajhi Banking & Investment Corp (M) Bhd, Asian Finance Bank Bhd, Kuwait Finance House (M) Bhd and Unicorn International Islamic Bank Malaysia Bhd. Bursa Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Yusli Mohamed Yusoff said “This venture brings two of the nation’s main global players; namely the Islamic banks and palm oil producers together, to further enhance Malaysia's palm oil futures' visibility on the world stage.”

Bursa Malaysia and CME Group, in 2009, announced plans for crude palm oil futures to be electronically traded on the CME Globex. 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. CME Group will buy a 25% stake in Bursa Malaysia Derivatives for RM55.6 million to be satisfied in RM1.9 million cash and 76,427 shares of CME Group. To facilitate the proposed equity participation, Bursa will consolidate all its derivatives businesses into Bursa Malaysia Derivatives and its subsidiaries. Under the corporate exercise, Bursa Malaysia Derivatives will acquire the entire issued and paid-up share capital of Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Clearing Bhd from Bursa for a cash consideration of RM37.1 million.

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.

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.

In October 2009, Indonesia plans to facilitate trading of crude palm oil and other raw materials on the Indonesia Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (ICDX). 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 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. 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. 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.