ICE points to rise of options OI as rates franchise caps stellar six months

Speaking to FOW on the sidelines of the FIA IDX event in London last month, the exchange group’s president of ICE Futures Europe pointed to the rise of options activity by traders this year. Overall average daily volume (ADV) peaked at 10.9 million contracts in March driven by broad based growth across segments. That was more than double the tally for the same month in 2025.

“If you look at the headline growth across ICE, it has really been driven by options activity,” Chris Rhodes (pictured) said in an interview. “Historically options across ICE would have been around 40% of total open interest, today it is around 60% (as of June 2026).”

Total open interest at the end of June rose a fifth year-on-year, continuing the trend, including a 46% boost to financials in the period – with a single day record of 56.8 million lots hit on June 11. ADV for the financial futures segment rose 27% to 4.9 million contracts in June according to figures published by the exchange. Rates trading has been buoyed by the strength of short term interest rates (STIR) trading – particularly options.

“That is particularly true in our interest rates complex where we have multi-currency coverage across both futures and options for almost all products,” Rhodes added. !So, in other words, we have various tools that our end users use, and that feeds back into more open interest.

“There is flywheel effect – liquidity, product, open interest. Strong open interest signals a healthy, active market, which in turn draws in more participants seeking that liquidity. You have to hit all three of those to be relevant in the current environment. This growing usage is a sign of a maturing, sticky options ecosystem.”

In May, ICE announced that it will expand its central bank futures to include Bank of Japan (BOJ) Dated TONA, along with Riksbank Dated SWESTR and Norges Bank Dated NOWA contracts.

The European STIR market on ICE has been boosted by flows of euro short rates contracts migrating back to the exchange amid volatility this year. ICE competes with Deutsche Boerse-owned Eurex for market share in both the Euribor and euro short term rate (ESTR) market.

“Our ESTR open interest growth demonstrates the power of liquidity and proves that when markets become volatile and uncertain, consistency of execution will always win,” Rhodes said. “We focus a lot on consistency of execution, which is why we point to market quality attributes such as top of book depth that go beyond surface volume.”

Euribor ADV rose 16% year-onyear in June, while open interest rose 52% in the period, hitting a record of 53 million contracts on June 11.

“What we are trying to achieve is to persuade buyside customers to use our products for their portfolio management needs,” Rhodes said. “They may trade Euribor futures with us, they may hedge some tail risk with some options, they may have a central bank specific view which they will express via a central bank dated futures contract, or they might have a specific risk on an upcoming meeting or an economic release that they want to create an overlay to.

“It is all the same customer, and we are here to provide a complete suite of tools and instruments no matter what product they want to trade or trade type they’re looking to execute.”