In 2025 Euronext, the European capital market infrastructure, has already announced initiatives to further diversify its business with the acquisition of Nasdaq’s Nordic power futures business and an entry into fixed income derivatives with contracts on main European government bonds.

Camille Beudin, head of diversified services at Euronext, which includes commodities, power trading, foreign exchange and investor services told Markets Media that since Euronext acquired Nord Pool, the physical power market in Europe with headquarters in Oslo, in 2020 the business has had a double-digit growth. In addition, volumes in the continuous market have increased fivefold over the last four years as Euronext expanded the business from the Nordics and UK into the rest of Europe, particularly where the group has a strong presence in France, Belgium and the Netherlands.

On 28 January 2025 Euronext announced the signing of a binding agreement to acquire Nasdaq’s Nordic power futures business, subject to receipt of applicable regulatory approvals. Beudin said the acquisition is fully aligned with Euronext’s “Innovate for Growth 2027” strategic priority to expand in power and accelerates Euronext’s ambitions in power futures.

In August 2024, Euronext and Nord Pool said they would be launching a Nordic and Baltic power futures market that addresses the need expressed by the market to have a long-standing, sustainable market infrastructure committed to developing secure power futures trading in the Nordic and Baltic regions. 

Beudin said: “Testing of Euronext’s new cash-settled electricity futures is starting in March and will be live ahead of the positions’ migration. We will start in the Nordics and then assess rolling out the offering.”

Euronext and Nasdaq intend to work closely together to ensure a smooth migration of Nasdaq’s Nordic power futures in the first half of 2026. Until the migration is completed, Nasdaq will continue to operate its Nordic power futures business as usual. Open positions in Nasdaq’s Nordic power derivatives, currently held in Nasdaq Clearing, will be transferred to Euronext Clearing, with approval of the members. Trading of power futures will be operated from Euronext Amsterdam and will be cleared through Euronext Clearing. 

Stéphane Boujnah, chief executive and chairman of the managing board of Euronext, said on the group’s investor day in November last year: “One of the most amazing things that we are going to do in the next few months and years is to combine the strength of a strong power trading platform in Oslo with a leading role in power trading in the Nordic region and Baltic regions, and also to a certain extent in the Central European with our Rome-based clearing capabilities.”

On Euronext’s investor day Beudin described the power derivatives initiative as a “game-changer” due to Euronext’s ambition to double the size of its  addressable market through leveraging Optiq, the proprietary trading platform and Euronext Clearing, whose risk model will bring margin efficiencies to clients.

Bond trading 

In February this year Euronext said it plans to introduce the first mini futures cash-settled on European government bonds September 2025. The contracts are designed to meet the needs of retail investors, while also providing asset managers and private investors with the granularity required for hedging or taking exposure to government bonds. The fixed income derivatives will also be traded on Optiq and cleared by Euronext Clearing.

Euronext said in bringing this new product to market by building on MTS, its platform for institutional bond trading. 

“MTS government bond volumes have exceeded more than $50bn on average per day this year thanks to favourable money markets and supportive volatility,” added Beudin.

Growth has been due to the business expanding from Italian government bonds to supranational bonds with the Next Generation EU post pandemic bonds, and also due to Euronext bringing MTS technology in-house.

Beudin is also responsible for the FX business and said: “Our FX platform manages trades of $30bn on average per day since the beginning of the year.”

He continued that Euronext has been gaining market share due to the quality of its platform, which has latency that is “second to none”, the firm’s liquidity management capabilities and the development of its precious metals franchise.

In the commodities business, volumes of agricultural contracts have risen in 2024 by more than 25%, according to Beudin. He said: “Our flagship contracts on milling wheat, rapeseed and corn are gaining traction from global players and we launched new contracts on salmon, for instance.”