The SIX Swiss Exchange has reached the 15-year milestone of hosting exchange-traded funds, having listed its first ETF back in September 2000.
SIX Swiss Exchange has celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of its first ETF listing.
Commenting on the achievement, Alain Picard, Head Product Management at SIX Swiss Exchange, said: “We are proud of reaching this milestone, and we would like to thank our clients and partners for the good collaboration”.
The growth of the exchange’s ETF segment is witnessed across a range of data points, including: trading turnover; the number of issuers and individual products; the range of authorised participants and market makers; the breadth of asset classes available, and, of course, assets under management.
The 15th anniversary is the latest ETF achievement for the Zurich-headquartered exchange in a year which has heralded in several key milestones such as the February listing of the 1,000th ETF on the exchange (the current number available exceeds 1,100 from 20 providers), while later listings in March and June saw the respective first-time arrivals of US-founded providers WisdomTree and Van Eck Global, the firm behind the Market Vectors brand of ETFs.
The growth of the ETF segment in Switzerland is reflective of global trends, which have seen assets under management across the ETF industry globally reach record highs. The success is attributed to several intrinsic benefits the product possesses over other investment vehicles. These include a low-cost structure, intraday tradability, enhanced transparency, greater liquidity and in-built diversification.
Despite the phenomenal growth, the outlook remains positive. According to SIX Swiss Exchange, “there still exists tremendous potential for new, innovative products that will encounter an interesting sales outlet in the form of the Swiss financial centre and the leading marketplace of SIX Swiss Exchange.”
Some of the key trends they anticipate include: the wider adoption of ETFs by private investors, whom they say are under-represented in the Swiss market compared to global averages; the entrance of new ETF providers, especially from non-EU countries, enabling broader and deeper coverage of global asset markets; the increasing popularity of ETFs to fulfil the traditional role of futures, most notably in currency-hedging; growing competition among providers, resulting in more favourable fee terms; an increasing number of smart beta launches, stealing market share away from actively managed mutual funds; and a shift towards digitalization, through new access points such as robo-advisors.