Our bank classes BA 12 made an excursion to the Frankfurt stock exchange. After the check-in with security standards comparable to those of an airport, we attended a talk given by a staff member of Deutsche Börse AG.

He started by explaining the organization of the Frankfurt stock exchange. We learned that the German company Deutsche Börse AG is not, as the name suggests, responsible for all German stock markets. It is only the operating company and also the licensee of the software systems used there for the trading of securities at this stock exchange center. The software systems made by them are also used at other stock exchanges like Dublin in the Republic of Ireland or Vienna in Austria.

In the following we heard different things about the history of the stock exchange in Frankfurt. It is about 400 years old and the biggest stock market in Germany today. Years ago the trade with securities was much more difficult because there weren’t any computer systems yet. At that time everything had to be done by hand. With the invention of telephones and later on of faxes etc. trading got easier and easier to the point of present-day IT standards. Today trading securities is possible in a split second.

In the end we gained interesting insights into the different types of mechanisms for trading and exchanging securities used at this stock exchange. They are called Eurex, Tradegate and Xetra.

There are over 11,000 national and international companies which are being traded in Frankfurt. The 30 top-selling German companies traded in Frankfurt create together the German securities index, called DAX. Nearly everyone might have heard of it in the daily news.

After the talk we went to the visitors’ gallery and were able to see the securities experts working on the trading floor. For us as bank trainees, visiting this economically important place was very interesting because now we know where a big part of the securities we work with in our jobs are traded.

Francesca Köhler