KEY PROJECTS IN 2023

Capital markets development

Moscow Exchange remains the primary platform for Russian businesses to raise funds for their development. In 2023, the total amount of funds raised by Russian companies in the Equity Market totalled more than RUB 140 billion, with eight new companies entering the market; the Bond Market saw a record RUB 5.5 trillion raised, 53 new issuers came to the market.

At the end of 2023, the volume of replacement bonds was RUB 1.7 trillion (13 issuers) and the volume of Yuan-denominated bonds reached RUB 0.9 trillion (13 issuers). Russian companies started issuing floaters, with their float volume reaching RUB 1.4 trillion (44 issuers) by the end of 2023.

Gold and UAE dirham denominated bonds are emerging to expand the offering.

The Group holds issuer engagement events, organises meetings and IPO sessions. In 2023, the Group presented updated versions of IPO guide, ESG Best Practices Guide and the Bond Issuers’ Guide.

In April 2023, the Exchange offered a service for making OTC trades in equities with the CCP, also without listing. At the end of the year, the service had 28 unlisted shares available. Trade volumes surpassed RUB 55 billion. Trades to buy are available only to qualified investors, and all investors have access to sell trades. The service is being used as a source of the technological support for the placement of non-public companies’ shares.

The Exchange continued developing its OTC segment with the CCP in the Bond Market launched at the end of 2022. Since the launch, the total volume of trades has reached more than RUB 2 trillion, with more than 220 bonds without listing admitted to trading in this mode.

Finuslugi

In 2023, Finuslugi’s customer base grew by more than 70% to reach 1.9 million people. Offers from 25 banks and 20 insurance companies are available on the marketplace. Finuslugi services cover 82 regions in Russia.

The platform’s product offering includes bank deposits, cash loans, OSAGO and mortgage insurance policies, and people’s bonds. In 2023, the platform was used to implement more than 20 new products and services, such as “Nakopilka” and brokers and mutual funds catalogues, along with investment rating for private investors and credit rating. The Platform welcomed green bonds of the City of Moscow, new issues of bonds placed by Kaliningrad Region and first issue of corporate bonds for individuals.

Trade Radar and expanded market data offering

In 2023, Moscow Exchange launched a new information and trading terminal, Trade Radar. Trade Radar users are able to timely receive the necessary financial market news, current and historical quotes for various assets, and securities issue reference data in a single data interface. The terminal offers advanced graphical analytics for technical analysis and provides an optimal solution for traders and sales teams of financial institutions, liquidity management specialists, treasury officers and representatives of professional financial market participants. The terminal’s important feature is its trade module, which permits users to negotiate and execute transactions on the OTC market. On top of that, Trade Radar allows messaging between interbank market participants to negotiate terms and make OTC trades in designated secure chat rooms. The trading module has an option for viewing trades history and quote prices to market makers.

Moscow Exchange launched the Information and Analytical Centre (IAC) to provide customers with Russian and CIS commodities market prices and analytical data on a regular basis.

New instruments

In 2023, the Derivatives Market saw a record high 37 new futures and options, including premium-style options on equities and FX, gold perpetual futures and premium-style options, perpetual futures on MOEX Russia Index, and sugar contracts. Floating rate trades (repos, deposits with the CCP and loans) and open-dated repos became available on the Money Market. The range of instruments for managing currency and interest rate risks in CNY is nearly completed: the maximum maturity of currency instruments was increased to five years, fixed-rate cross-currency swaps in CNY, RUSFAR CNY interest rate and cross-currency swaps with floating rates with maturities from three days to five years were added. The number of ETFs attracting investor interest was increased in response to rapidly growing interest from retail investors. Nine new Russian-law ETFs were launched on the Equity Market in 2023. Milk and dairy products, corn, sunflower seeds, and sugar began to trade in on-exchange commodity auctions. New commodity market indices started to be calculated: soybean Index, daily OTC regional sugar indices for the Central Federal District, Southern Federal District, and the Volga Federal District. NSD kept on with developing SPFS and Multibank platform bringing new clients.

Carbon units

In 2023, Russia was further shaping the market for carbon units, with new climate projects emerging on the market. In November 2023, NAMEX successfully auctioned 2,735 carbon units. SIBUR acted as the seller and auction client. The carbon units were generated through the climate project implemented at SIBUR-Khimprom to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from dioctyl terephthalate production. The change in technology reduced NG consumption per unit of output.

Carbon units are traded through on-exchange commodity auctions, where the seller of carbon units sets the starting price and buyers bid competitively by increasing the price of their bids. On-exchange trades ensure transparent and open pricing of the new asset category. The commodity auction technology introduced at NAMEX is the most effective way to quickly bring new types of assets, such as carbon units, to the exchange market.

The development of the carbon unit market infrastructure also continued. NAMEX concluded an Agreement with Kontur and joined the Procedure for interaction between the carbon units registry operator and market operators. The Procedure sets out the rights and obligations of the parties in sharing information required for transactions in the carbon units registry.

PROMOTING A CULTURE OF TRUST AND RESPONSIBILITY

In 2023, the Group effectively navigated through a challenging market environment amidst external constraints. The Group ensured the reliable operation of the Exchange’s infrastructure: the Exchange’s key systems availability was measured at 99.98%.

2023 events included the following.

• For the first time, ISO 37301:2021 Compliance Management System certification at the Group level was achieved.
• Moscow Exchange Group was chosen a winner in the “Development of a culture of trust in the financial market” category of Russian Compliance Award 2023.
• 68 trading participants joined the Exchange’s Code of Conduct created in cooperation with the Bank of Russia, SROs, Group companies and trading members.