As part of the strategy to develop the Egyptian market, EGX Chairman, Dr. Islam Azzam, announces commencement of trading future contracts (financial derivatives) starting from the session of Sunday, March 1, 2026. This historic step reflects completion of the regulatory and operational requirements of launching future contracts market.
He clarified that launching the market comes following The Egyptian Exchange’s obtaining the required license from The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) to operate trading future contracts activity, as well as FRA approval of both regulations of trading future contracts as well as regulations of their clearing and settlement, ensuring comprehensive regulatory supervision of the market, attaining protecting investors, as well as integrity and stability of trading.
EGX Chairman pointed out that it’s scheduled to start trading on EGX30 Index of contracts extending for three and six months, with a development and expansion plan that includes launching derivatives on EGX70. In addition to launching future contracts on stocks, depending on readiness of the market and its participants.
The Egyptian Exchange published on its website the characteristics of future contracts on EGX30 Index in a section dedicated for derivatives market, including detailed explanation of all contract terms.
He emphasized that the operational and technological infrastructure is fully ready, as the trading derivatives system was developed by Egyptian Information Dissemination Company (EGID) with real-time integration between trading systems as well as clearing and settlement systems, ensuring efficiency and transparency of transactions execution according to the best international practices.
He added that financial derivatives settlement mechanism is done through an application of Central Counterparty (CCP) in collaboration with Taswyaat Clearing Services Company, ensuring high efficiency of transactions and reducing counterparty risks. Also a comprehensive risk management framework is applied including: real-time margin calculations, collateral management, open-positions assessment, daily and final settlements execution.
He also pointed out that End-to-End operational workflow was tested before starting actual operation, reflecting full readiness for launching the market according to the highest regulatory and technical standards.
He explained that the volume of future contracts on EGX30 is equal to unit (1), with each point on the Index equivalent to one Egyptian pound and cash settlement (T+1) is applied.
This approach aims at a simplified mechanism of calculating contracts’ values for investors, reducing the expenses of entering the market, expanding the base of participants, as well as enhancing liquidity and trading rates during the first stage of launching the market.
As two consecutive contracts are listed, where the first contract expires after three months for the first time, while the second contract expires after six months. Upon expiration of the first contract, a new contract is listed for six months. Therefore, contracts continue to be listed monthly and consequently there will be two successive quarterly contracts. Thus, the last trading day of contract expiration is on the third Wednesday of the contract expiration month or the previous working day if Wednesday is vacation.
He announced that derivatives trading sessions time will be the same as stock market sessions, achieving operational integration between the two markets. Also available order types will include: limited price “Limit order”; order available for one trading day “Day order”; condition of all amount of none “All or None — AON”; as well as minimum amount condition “Minimum Fill —MF”.
Scheduled Time:
Order registry: from 8:30am to 10:00am
Continuous trading session: from 10:00am to 2:30pm daily.
Trading session during the holy month of Ramadan:
Trading: from 8:30am to 10:00am.
Continuous trading session: from 10:00am to 1:30pm daily.
Dr. Islam Azzam highlighted that launching derivatives market represents a qualitative leap in risk management in the Egyptian capital market, providing effective mechanisms to hedge and enhance pricing efficiency, contributing to deepen the market and strengthening its competitiveness both regionally and internationally.
