MARKET PERFORMANCE

EQUITY & BOND MARKET

The Equity and Bond Market is a liquidity center for operations with Russian securities and the main platform for Russian companies to raise capital. MOEX is a leading venue for issuance and trading of shares and depositary receipts of Russian and foreign shares; government, regional and corporate bonds; sovereign and corporate bonds and Eurobonds; mutual funds (PIFs) and Russian-law ETFs.

Trading results

In 2022, total trading volumes on the Equity Market amounted to RUB 17.6 trln. Total trading volume on the BondMarket was RUB 19.6 trln in 2022, of which RUB 6.5 trln was traded on the secondary market.

The volume of placements of corporate, regional and sovereign bonds was RUB 2.58 trln (2021: RUB 3.17 trln). The number of bond issuers decreased from 176 to 139 compared to the previous year. In 2022, the volume of OFZ placements increased by 24% YoY to RUB 3.1 trln.

At the end of February, the market experienced significant volatility due to the changing geopolitical situation, resulting in the Bank of Russia halting trading on the Equity & Bond Market from 28 February.

Trading on the market gradually resumed on 21 March, starting with Russian government bonds (OFZ), and then on 24 March 2022, the most liquid shares of the MOEX Russia Index were added. Following the resumption of trading, the trading hours were extended, and the number of available instruments on the market increased.

Attracting retail investors

The number of individuals with brokerage accounts on Moscow Exchange increased by 6.1 million to 22.9 million people in 2022, with over 38.3 million accounts (+10.7 million in 2022) opened.

The top 10 regions are Moscow (2.10 million individuals with brokerage accounts), Moscow Region (1.30 million), St. Petersburg (1.01 million), Krasnodar Krai (0.83 million), Bashkortostan (0.77 million), Sverdlovsk Region (0.75 million), Tatarstan (0.71 million), Rostov Region (0.65 million), Chelyabinsk Region (0.59 million), and Samara Region (0.55 million).

In 2022, the number of individual investment accounts (IIA) increased by 449.0 thousand to 5.2 million.

The regions with the most open IIAs are Moscow (537,300 accounts opened (+36,600 in 2022)), Moscow Oblast (310,700 accounts (+28,800)), and Saint-Petersburg (247,700 accounts (+23,500)). Among the other regions, the top 3 included the Sverdlovsk Region with 168,800 accounts (+16,400 in 2022), the Republic of Bashkortostan with 164,300 (+16,600), and Krasnodar Krai with 159,700 (+20,000).

Due to non-resident restrictions, the share of retail investors in equity trading increased to 76% from 40% in 2021. The share of retail investors in the OFZ market increased to 15.3% (6.5% in 2021) and in the corporate bond market to 22.9% (19.7% in 2021).

Over 2.2 million people transacted on the Moscow Exchange Equity Market monthly (2.0 million in 2021). In 2022, the total turnover of IIAs was RUB 1.7 trln with the majority of activity being in equities, accounting for 87.6% of the turnover. Bonds accounted for 4.9% of the turnover, while ETFs made up 7.4%.

Collective investment

As of February 2022, there were 148 ETFs, including 123 Russian-law ETFs and 25 ETFs, as well as 102 mutual funds (open-end, interval and closed-end mutual funds) of 36 asset management companies. The collective investment industry adapted quickly to the new realities as it was less oriented towards international participants. Moscow Exchange, together with the Regulator and the asset management companies, did everything possible to resume trading in all funds.

The resumption of trading in Russian-law ETFs on Russian assets began on 29 March, mutual funds in April and Russian-law ETFs on international assets on 23 May. At the end of 2022, trading in units of over 75% of all mutual funds, including all Russian-law ETFs on Russian assets, resumed. In addition, since March 2022, six new Russian-law ETFs by five asset management companies were launched, and three mutual funds of three asset management companies were admitted to trading. A total of nine new Russian-law ETFs of six asset management companies were launched in 2022. At the end of 2022, investors could trade 166 mutual funds of 43 asset managers, including 71 Russian-law ETFs of 16 asset managers and 95 mutual funds (open-end, interval and closed-end mutual funds) of 35 asset managers.

In 2022, Moscow Exchange also created favorable conditions for the expansion of the CNY-denominated Russian-law ETFs. Thus, the RUSFARCNY benchmark was launched on 26 September 2022 and the CNY-denominated Russian Bonds Index on 14 November 2022. Additionally, from 5 December 2022, Moscow Exchange introduced trading modes to buy/sell CNY-denominated mutual funds.

After-hours trading session

On 12 September 2022, after-hours trading was resumed on the Moscow Exchange Equity Market. The total trading time on the market extended to 14 hours a day.

The share of the evening trading increased to 8.9% (8.1% in 2021).

Retail investors were the most active participants of the evening trading session, with trading volume of RUB 2.0 trln.

40% of the total number of retail investors, or almost 3.5 million individuals traded in the evening session in 2022.

Boosting liquidity

On 1 November 2022, new Equity Market tariffs were implemented. The changes include the introduction of an asymmetric “maker-taker” tariff model, which resulted in a reduction of an average of 20% in spreads in the most liquid securities and an increase in the number of market makers executing trades.

In response to regulatory requirements and demand from market participants, a new type of order, Passive Only, was introduced along with the new tariff policy. This order type ensures participants that the order they submit to the trading system will never be an active side of a transaction (taker). This order type is increasingly being utilized by market makers and algorithmic traders.

Market-making programs

A new market-making program, IMOEX+, was launched to support the restart of trading when the Equity Market resumed.

The program was updated throughout the year, for example, in November, due to the introduction of an asymmetrical “maker-taker” tariff model, the variable fee was replaced by the volume of market maker passive trades multiplied by the appropriate multiplier in the market maker fee calculation formula. The number of market makers executing on securities under the IMOEX+ program increased by an average of 20%.

With the resumption of the evening trading session on 12 September 2022, the Good Evening market making program was resumed, which had a positive impact on restarting the evening session and increasing its share of total trading volume.

To support the liquidity of certain instruments, tripartite market-making agreements were successfully applied, where market-maker services were sponsored by the issuers. Of particular note here are exchange-traded funds, whose liquidity was provided by market makers in all order books and in all sessions.

Development of the OTC segment for bonds

The OTC Central Counterparty (CCP) service was successfully launched in April 2022 and quickly gained popularity due to its ease of use, wide range of instruments and direct order book transactions with the CCP, which reduced the need for mutual limits for end counterparties. In the first eight months of 2022, volumes in order book transactions with the CCP exceeded RUB 200 billion, the number of participants was more than 100 companies, and the new service had a trading volume of up to 9% of the exchange market. The service also allows for unlisted bond transactions (116 unlisted instruments, or about 5% of the total number of instruments in the mode, were available at the end of 2022). Transactions in unlisted instrument accounted for 14% of the total volume of OTC transactions with the CCP in 2022.

Replacement bonds – currency yields without custodial risks

Emerging as a response to the difficulty of servicing Eurobonds in foreign infrastructure, replacement bonds have quickly become a separate market segment offering currency yields without infrastructure risks. At the end of 2022, there were 22 replacement bond issues of eight issuers trading on the exchange, with a total volume of around RUB 567 billion. Of these, eight issues worth RUB 130 billion were floated on Moscow Exchange. In December 2022, the share of replacement bonds in total corporate bond trading volumes reached 20%. Individuals accounted for more than 60% of the trading volume of replacement bonds.

Yuan-denominated bonds – a new market trend

August 2022 saw the first placement of local bonds in Chinese Yuan amid a rapidly growing resource base of investors seeking to diversify their foreign currency savings. In the first five months of 2022, ten issuers placed a total of 17 issues of yuan-denominated bonds on Moscow Exchange, worth CNY 49.7 bln (approximately RUB 512 bln), representing 20% of total corporate bond placements in August-December 2022 (excluding overnight issues).

Attracting SMEs

To encourage SMEs to tap the public markets, the Growth Sector is available on Moscow Exchange. The Growth Sector is intended to attract funds to high-potential companies in the real sector of the economy, to expand the range of traded instruments on the financial market and to diversify investors’ allocations.

The Growth Sector is supported by the Federal Corporation for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME Corporation), SME Bank and the Russian Ministry of Economic Development.

As part of the implementation of the SME national project, SME issuers have access to financial support instruments. In order to implement the mechanism to compensate SME issuers for the costs of going public, subsidies are provided to reimburse the issuers’ expenses on the services of book runners and rating agencies, as well as on the payment of coupon income on bonds. SMEs will also receive support in the form of sureties/guarantees for bond issues from SME Corporation and participation of SME Bank as a co-organiser and anchor investor.

For bonds to be included in the Growth Sector, issuers must meet the following key requirements: revenue for the last reporting period is at least RUB 120 million, the issuer has existed for at least three years, and its credit rating is at least BB- according to the Russian scale (not applicable to issues guaranteed by SME Corporation or anchor investments by SME Bank). SME bond issues in the Growth Sector amounted to RUB 5.6 billion in 2022.

In 2022, financing of RUB 33.5 million was provided for 19 bond issues by SME issuers and subsidies on bond coupon rates in the amount of RUB 386.8 million were provided for 33 transactions.

Moscow Exchange supports SME issuers by maintaining from 1 January 2020 a preferential listing fee for SME issuers issuing bonds in the Growth Sector; from 27 April 2020, SME issuers have not been charged a listing fee when issuing bonds of up to RUB 400 million (the preferential period extends to 31 December 2023). To mitigate the negative impact of the geopolitical situation and increased volatility in the financial market, Moscow Exchange introduced a credit rating grace period in March 2022 to maintain Growth Sector bonds by accepting ratings as of 1 February 2022 until 1 October 2022.

Innovation and Investment Market

Moscow Exchange successfully operates the Innovation and Investment Market (IIM), which was created to to promote investment in the innovation sector of the Russian economy.

By the end of 2022, 31 securities were traded in the IIM Sector: 10 shares, 19 bonds, one ETF and one pre-IPO closed-end mutual fund. The total capitalisation of the sector amounted to about RUB 450 billion. Total trading volumes exceeded RUB 225 bln. In 2022, five companies placed their securities through the IIM Sector: four bond issuers and one IPO.

In order to encourage technology companies to enter the exchange, the following government support tools have been envisaged:

• tax relief (personal income tax) on income from the sale or other disposal of shares, bonds of Russian organisations, investment units that are securities of the high-tech (innovative) sector of the economy, provided that they have been continuously owned by the taxpayer for at least one year as of the date of their sale;
• tax relief applies to transactions in shares of high-tech companies with a market capitalisation of no more than RUB 75 billion, bonds of issuers with annual revenue of no more than RUB 75 billion, and investment units (NAV of no more than RUB 75 billion);
• within the framework of the initiative Taking off – from Start-up to IPO approved by the Government of the Russian Federation in 2022, small innovative enterprises will be provided with grant support to co-finance innovative projects from the Federal State Institution “Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology”. The grant ceiling is RUB 30 million, part of which can be spent on the listing activities (legal, investment bank services, marketing and other services).

Listing of securities

In 2022, work continued to inform investors about the quality of traded securities: 32 securities of 22 issuers were included in the Increased Investment Risk Companies Sector.

Moscow Exchange actively works with SMEs to support the development of the respective national project. For four consecutive years, Moscow Exchange has provided listing services to SME issuers at preferential rates.

In 2022, the Exchange began actively introducing automated and robotic processes in the operations.

As of the end of 2022, 4,154 securities of 1,400 issuers were admitted to trading, including 994 shares and depositary receipts of 922 issuers and 2,929 bonds of 505 issuers. The Exchange’s quotation lists include 1,332 securities of 258 issuers: the Level 1 includes 921 securities of 163 issuers and the Level 2 includes 411 securities of 122 issuers.

DERIVATIVES MARKET

The Derivatives Market is one of Moscow Exchange’s largest financial markets. It currently offers 166 instruments, 30% of which (49 contracts) were launched in 2022. Despite the challenging economic and political situation, the market managed not only to maintain but also increase the number of active clients compared to 2021: there were 169,000 clients trading on the market, an increase of 16% compared to 2021.

The departure of non-residents from the market was largely compensated by the increase in HFT resident clients’ activity. While the total HFT trading volume in 2022 was RUB 44 trillion (2021: RUB 98 trillion), the trading volume of Russian resident HFT clients increased by RUB 4 trillion, reaching RUB 28 trillion.

The influence of retail investors has significantly increased: the share of individuals in the total trading volume rose from 41% to 61%. In some instruments, private investors exceeded 80% of the trading volume. Market conditions’ changes have affected the nature of product and technology initiatives.

Trading volumes

In 2022, total trading volumes on the Derivatives Market amounted to RUB 77.9 trln (RUB 158.5 trln in 2021), including futures trading volumes of RUB 75.6 trln and options trading volumes of RUB 2.3 trln.

New instruments

2022 was one of the most productive years in terms of the number of new instruments. The current economic situation has caused a change in market conditions, both in the structure of market participants and in the range of underlying assets. New market needs provided the basis for the launch of a number of unique contracts.

The Real Estate Index Futures began trading in January. In 2022, two thousand clients transacted over RUB 1 billion in this instrument, confirming Russian investors’ interest in the instrument.

In February, a Russian Government Bond Index (RGBI) futures contract was launched. Participants were able to open a position on the entire government bond segment in a single transaction, without the need to purchase individual issues of securities. In the context of increased volatility on the Russian debt market, the contract proved to be in high demand from trading members, with turnover exceeding RUB 260 million.

The year 2022 saw a significant increase in Russian investors’ interest in currencies of friendly countries, which led to the restart of the CNY/RUB FX Futures contract on the Derivatives Market. The contract’s trading volume grew exponentially, exceeding RUR 1 trillion by the end of the year, reflecting demand from the market.

Perpetual futures, which were launched in April, are conceptually new instruments on the Derivatives Market in 2022. The advantage of these instruments, and at the same time their main difference from others, is the absence of an expiry date. Potentially endless contracts allow institutional investors to hedge assets and liabilities over the long term without having to roll over a futures position. At the end of the year, trading volume exceeded RUB 150 billion.

Trading in derivatives on Russian wheat began in August. Russia is the world’s all-time leader in wheat production and export, so the contract is actively used by grain export market participants as a representative price reference and hedging tool. The collateral for the contract is about RUB 2,000, which allows the mass investor to freely influence the price of Russian wheat. By the end of the year, individuals accounted for 92% of the total trading volume in the contract.

Russian investors’ interest in foreign investment without the infrastructure risk has increased amid external constraints. Three new contracts on the most sought-after foreign benchmarks were launched in 2022. The instruments facilitate portfolio diversification due to their low risk rate and low transaction costs. In December 2022, trading volume in the instruments exceeded RUB 11 billion.

In November, trading in a new type of instrument, premium-based cash-settled options on 21 Russian shares, was launched. Previously, only options on futures contracts were traded on Moscow Exchange. Since the launch of trading, more than 5,000 clients have traded single-stock options for a total of more than RUB 410 million. Contracts are in demand from retail investors, who accounted for 58% of turnover at the end of the year.

Technological development

In 2022, an asymmetric tariff model was introduced on the Derivatives Market. Under the updated approach, banks and brokers, as well as their clients submitting orders and thus providing liquidity to the market, are exempt from paying exchange fees for futures and options transactions. A fee is charged only to clients who conclude transactions based on orders already on the book. In December, a new “funding” method for perpetual futures was introduced. The mechanism has improved the correlation between the price of perpetual futures and the underlying asset.

The innovations have helped improve efficiency and boost liquidity on the Moscow Exchange Derivatives Market, despite the infrastructural, market and other challenges facing the Russian financial market.

FX MARKET

Increased exchange rate volatility in the first half of the year, the imposition of external restrictions, the blocking of accounts in currencies of unfriendly countries and the outflow of non-residents required a restructuring of the on-exchange FX market and a reorientation of business towards friendly jurisdictions.

In the new environment, market participants and clients had to quickly realign their strategies and the exchange infrastructure had to be reconfigured to implement monitoring and control measures in line with new legislative initiatives.

To adapt the economy and market participants to the new realities, reorient financial transactions towards currencies of friendly countries and improve the reliability of the exchange infrastructure, the FX Market was restructured in several areas: new currency pairs were introduced, instrument parameters were changed, trading hours were extended, the tariff policy was improved and there was active interaction with participants from friendly countries.

Updates to official rates methodology

From 25 April 2022, the official EUR/RUB and CNY/RUB rates are set by the Bank of Russia on the basis of transactions executed on MOEX’s FX Market between 10:00 to 15:30 Moscow time, similar to the official USD/RUB rate. Previously, only the official USD/RUB rate was established on the basis of MOEX’s market data, while the other currencies were calculated using the cross-rate method at the time of calculation.

Dedollarisation processes and development of trading in national currencies

In 2022, the following projects were implemented as part of diversification and development of trading in national currencies:

• Five new currencies were launched, such as Armenian Dram (AMD), South African Rand (ZAR), Uzbekistan Sum (UZS), Kyrgyzstan Som (KGS) and Tajikistan Somoni (TJS) with a standard set of TOD, TOM and overnight swaps instruments.
• The range of instruments with small lots in Chinese Yuan (CNY), Turkish Lira (TRY), Hong Kong Dollar (HKD), Belarusian Ruble (BYN), Kazakh Tenge (KZT) and others was expanded. In 2022, more than 50 participants trade instruments with small lots, and the total volume of transactions exceeded RUB 126 billion.
• To concentrate the order book and increase liquidity, the minimum price fluctuation on spot instruments for CNY/RUB and TRY/RUB was increased from 0.0001 to RUB 0.001 roubles.

The case of friendly currencies shows how quickly the need for a reliable exchange infrastructure in extreme situations is growing and dedollarisation processes are evolving.

In 2022, trading volumes in friendly currencies increased sharply, with trades in CNY/RUB growing 128-fold, KZT/RUB 126-fold, TRY/RUB 19-fold and BYN/RUB 440-fold.

Trading in friendly currencies against RUB accounted for 38% of spot FX volume on MOEX (it was less than 0.5% at the beginning of the year). The share of USD/RUB fell from 84% to 40%.

Expanding trading hours

Pre-market trading was resumed on 12 September, starting at 6:50 Moscow time, giving a total of 12 hours of trading in the FX Market.

On average for October-December 2022, the share of trades from 7:00-10:00 a.m. in total trading volume exceeded 10%, twice as high as in January-February.

TOD trading was extended from 12:00 to 12:30 a.m. on 31 October for CNY, TRY, KZT, BYN and ZAR.

Improvement of the tariff model

To stimulate liquidity, the following asymmetric tariff model for order book spot transactions was introduced on 1 August: a 0% fee for makers and a 0.0045% fee for takers were offered, and from 14 November, the parameters for the surcharge were changed.

Attracting Russian investors and corporates

In 2022, the interest of private investors and corporates in conversion transactions and their shift towards friendly currencies was an important driver of MOEX’s FX Market.

The share of individuals in spot transactions rose to 28% in December (12.4% on average in 2021).

The share of Russian legal entities, companies and organisations, in spot transactions increased six-fold in the fourth quarter to 11.8% (1.9% for the same period in 2021).

In 2022, 18 companies were given direct access to the FX Market, while the total number of corporates (including insurance companies) with access to the market reached 59.

Development of the EAEU Integrated FX Market

The EAEU Integrated FX Market plays an important role in the development of trading in national currencies by offering non-resident banks from EAEU countries and Tajikistan access to on-exchange trading on an equal footing with Russian participants.

There are 31 banks from the EAEU/CIS, including two central banks and two international financial institutions, operating in the market.

More than 20 other banks are in the process of gaining direct access.

In the past year, the activity of banks from the EAEU countries on the MOEX market has increased sharply. The annual turnover of EAEU members on Moscow Exchange was RUB 4.7 trillion, up more than 80% from 2021.

Future plans are to expand the list of member banks with direct access and make client access available to as many clients as possible from other friendly countries.

Precious metals market development

There are 98 companies trading on the Precious Metals Market: 56 banks, 33 professional securities market participants (asset management companies, brokerage companies and their clients), and the Bank of Russia.

In 2022, 32 new members joined the market.

The volume of spot transactions in gold totalled RUB 73.74 billion, down 3% vs. 2021.

There are plans to expand the infrastructure capacity of the Precious Metals Market.

MONEY MARKET

Moscow Exchange’s Money Market is a segment of the Russian financial market through which market participants carry out cash liquidity management.

The key segment of the Money Market is repo transactions with the Central Counterparty (CCP), performed by NCC, and repo transactions in general collateral certificates (GCC). RUSFAR, a Money Market benchmark recognised by the Bank of Russia is calculated on the basis of the GCC repos as the most liquid and efficient market segment.

Trading volumes

In 2022, total Money Market trading volumes amounted to RUB 672.7 trln, up 42% YoY.

Repo trading volumes totalled RUB 542 trln, (81% of total Money Market volumes); trading volumes of non-CCP deposit and credit transactions totalled RUB 130.8 trln.

The year-on-year increase in total market trading volumes was the result of a 21.7% increase (to RUB 431.4 trln) in the volume of repo transactions with the CCP (including GCC repo and deposits with the CCP). Trading volume of CCP-cleared repo transactions was RUB 298.7 trillion, up 10.3% YoY. The average daily open position in repos with the CCP in 2022 was RUB 3 trillion.

GCC repo continues to be the most-fastest growing CCP-cleared repo product in 2022: trading volumes increased by 58.5% YoY to RUB 133 trln, and the average daily open position was RUB 956.7 bln.

Expanding the range of instruments

In order to provide participants of the repo market with a more flexible approach to liquidity management, MOEX implemented the following projects in 2022:

• admission of mortgage-backed securities of DOM.RF and securities of constituent entities of the Russian Federation to CCP-cleared repo with the Federal Treasury;
• expanding trading hours and terms for CCP-cleared repo with settlement in CNY, launching GCC repo, repo-M, deposits with the CCP and credits with settlement in CNY, and introducing RUSFAR denominated in CNY;
• professional market participants were given the opportunity to access the repo market and the CCP deposit market at the same time.

Attracting new categories of participants

Real economy companies showed a growing interest in the Moscow Exchange’s Money Market in 2022.

The average daily open position on the CCP deposit market increased from RUB 110 billion to RUB 137 billion (up 24.5%).

In 2022, 36 companies were connected to this market. A total of 177 companies were admitted to this segment at the end of 2022.

In addition, the tools offered by the market to members were developed:

• the functionality for partial early withdrawal of deposits was implemented,
• deposits with the CCP in CNY were launched.

The MOEX Treasury platform for corporate clients was further enhanced in 2022, with the following functionality implemented:

• an algorithmic module was launched on the CCP Deposit Market, allowing available funds to be placed according to set parameters,
• option to chart indicators and rate curves by term was introduced,
• integration of MOEX Treasury with the clearing terminal was further developed,
• the functionality for auctions with regional participants on the M-Deposit Market was implemented,
• MOEX Treasury continued to integrate with NSD’s Transit 2.0 system,
• the chat service was implemented,
• the interface and platform user settings were further improved.

COMMODITIES MARKETS

MOEX promotes commodities trading through two key commodities markets: precious metals and agricultural. Precious metals are traded on the MOEX FX Market platform, while trading in agricultural products is operated by the National Mercantile Exchange (NAMEX), part of the Moscow Exchange Group.

On-exchange trading in agricultural products

In 2022, NAMEX continued to develop the commodity auction market. Commodity auctions are a simplified mechanism for trading new products with direct admission to trading for customers and auction participants. Transactions on the market are not cleared. The customers of the auctions are legal entities, such as large exporters, processors and producers of agricultural products. The customer of the auction determines the main parameters of the auction: delivery terms, basis, starting price, minimum price step, etc. Any legal entities and individual entrepreneurs can participate in auctions. Commodity auctions continued to attract strong interest from market participants, with more than 170 companies joining the auctions in 2022 (the total number of trading members on the commodity auction market exceeded 320 companies). In addition to the most in-demand instrument, wheat on the Novorossiysk CPT basis, the market saw transactions in soybean and rapeseed arranged by Russia’s major oilseed processor, Sodruzhestvo Group. In 2022, the volume of agricultural products traded on the commodity auction market totalled RUB 16.3 bln, or 1.03 mln tonns (2021: RUB 11.4 bln, or 656,700 tonns). In September 2022, Russia’s first exchange-traded carbon units were launched on the commodity auction market.

In 2022, trading in sugar continued in the form of a bilateral anonymous auction, where NSD clears and settles sale and purchase agreements concluded on the Exchange. In 2022, trading volumes on the sugar market was RUB 7.6 billion, a 3-fold increase from 2021 (RUB 2.5 billion).

NAMEX is Russia’s authorised exchange for state commodity and procurement interventions on the grain market. In 2022, grain purchases to the state intervention fund totaled 3.12 mln tonns, or RUB 47 bln (2021: 32,800 tonns, or RUB 394.5 mln).

In April 2022, NAMEX expanded the range of export indices (the indices for wheat, barley and corn have been calculated since 2021) to include sunflower oil and sunflower meal. The sunflower oil and meal indices are calculated on the basis of over-the-counter contracts on the commodities transmitted to NAMEX by oil and fats companies and are used by the Russian Ministry of Agriculture and the Federal Customs Service to set export duties on the commodities.

The NAMEX Novorossiysk SPT Wheat Index started to be calculated and distributed on teh basis of wheat transactions concluded on the commodity auction market from August 2021. The Index was approved by the Bank of Russia, and MOEX began trading index contracts on its Derivatives Market.

Using NAMEX’s personal accounts, agricultural market participants registered more than 102,000 OTC contracts involving the transfer of ownership of agricultural products, totalling more than 76 million tonns.

A new information product, the Commodity Markets Newsletter, was launched in May 2022, providing key information on the condition of on-exchange and OTC markets for agricultural products.