Issues related to central counterparty clearing: Opening remarks
First of all, I would like to say that I am extremely
delighted to welcome you to this conference and to
Frankfurt—a city that offers a huge variety of facets
based on almost 2,000 years of history. Frankfurt was
not only the home of important writers and philosophers,
such as Goethe, Schopenhauer, and Adorno,
it has also over the centuries prospered as a marketplace
and magnet for business. Key to this success was
its central location at the crossroads of large trading
routes between the North and South and the East and
West. Finance followed trade, and early on, Frankfurt
became not only the home of large trade fairs but also
an important financial center. It was one of the birth
places of our modern stock exchanges, bringing about
early financial innovations, such as trade with derivatives
or bonds. When I look at the history of Chicago,
I see a lot of similarities to Frankfurt: Chicago developed
from a trading hub of agricultural products into a
financial metropolis with a very potent stock exchange.