Deutsche Börse

Our mission is to improve the efficiency of markets. Our objective is to become the preeminent exchange organization. We will provide access to the most attractive securities and derivatives markets. Being the only fully integrated exchange organization worldwide, we offer a full range of trading, clearing, settlement, custody, information and infrastructure services at lowest costs. We will organize new markets and thereby improve their liquidity. We will provide first-class services targeted at intermediaries and vendors, investors and issuers worldwide. We initiate and support improvements of the regulatory framework and are open for valuable partnerships. To achieve these goals we build on our uniquely skilled professionals and the power and reliability of our fully integrated electronic systems. Thus, we create superior shareholder value. The Exchange Rules and Regulations are enacted, providing an official administration for the exchange. Bond trading develops when Bankhaus Bethmann arranges a loan for the Emperor. Germans are allowed to buy foreign securities again; Frankfurt helps finance postwar reconstruction. New legislation starts to make the Frankfurt exchange more efficient and more attractive to foreign investors. Deutsche Börse is created as a holding company for the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and other entities; Werner Seifert becomes CEO. A merger with the London stock exchange is announced but falls apart. Deutsche Börse AG operates a range of trading institutions out of Frankfurt, Germany's financial hub. It vies with the London Stock Exchange and Euronext, a French-Belgian-Dutch exchange, for control of Europe's capital markets. Deutsche Börse offers trading in cash securities on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and trading in futures and options through the Eurex market, which it co-owns with the Swiss exchange. The company is notable for its use of technology, in particular the electronic trading platform Xetra, to achieve efficient trading. Deutsche Börse also offers settlement and clearing services through its subsidiary Clearstream and market information through the DAX index as well as through private information services for professional investors. Deutsche Börse's broad umbrella of services and vertically integrated structure allow it to play a part in nearly all stages of the trading process. CEO Werner Seifert is credited with transforming the Frankfurt Exchange from a provincial market to a major player on the European stage. The Frankfurt Exchange most recently rose to prominence in the mid-1990s through a dynamic program of technological improvements, mergers, and partnerships. But Frankfurt's status as an international financial center has waxed and waned many times over the centuries since the exchange was founded in the 16th century. Frankfurt has a long history as a center for trading and commerce. Emperor Ludwig the German gave the city the right to hold an annual fair back in the mid-ninth century, and after 1330 the city was allowed to hold a second fair in the spring as well. Frankfurt grew in importance as a regional center for trading in various commodities. In the early 16th century Martin Luther referred to the city as the "silver and gold hole" of the German Empire. Protestant merchants from France and the Netherlands came to Frankfurt to escape religious persecution and contributed to the establishment of wholesale commerce and banking institutions. People from all over Europe exchanged goods and money in Frankfurt. However, there was little trading in credit or currency beyond what was immediately related to commodity exchange. The official founding of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is generally considered to have occurred in 1585 when a group of merchants met at the fair and agreed on uniform exchange rates for the many different kinds of coins that came to the fair from surrounding regions. Up until that meeting, currency exchange was quite chaotic: exchange rates fluctuated