The country’s leading bourse, the National Stock Exchange, has been rated as one of the top two Asia-Pacific bourses, boasting the highest volume of trading in financial derivatives contracts, a report by global consultancy Celent said.

The study, which examined the growing clout of Asia- Pacific derivatives exchanges worldwide, said the region’s strong economic growth has resulted in a strong interest in derivatives trading.

The Korea Exchange and India’s National Stock Exchange have emerged as the most successful bourses in Asia and also figure among the leading exchanges globally in terms of their financial derivatives contract trading volumes.

The list of the top 10 Asia-Pacific financial derivatives exchanges is led by the Korea Exchange, with a trading volume of 3.10 billion contracts, and the National Stock Exchange, with 918.5 million contracts, the data compiled in the Celent report showed.

Financial derivatives, like options and futures contracts, derive their value by reference to an underlying stock or index and are traded on the exchanges.

“Asian derivatives exchanges have laid down the marker for their global counterparts. It is important for them to build upon their recent success by enhancing their product range, adopting better technology and increasing cross- listings of derivatives products,” Celent Senior Analyst and author of the report Anshuman Jaswal said.

Other Asia-Pacific bourses on the list include the Osaka Securities Exchange (166 million contracts), Taiwan Futures Exchange (135.1 million contracts) and Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (98.5 million contracts).

The report stated that the Korea Exchange (KRX) and National Stock Exchange (NSE) are now competing with other established global exchanges in the derivatives trading arena.

“Derivatives from KRX and NSE are already leading their product categories (index options from KRX and index futures and currency futures from NSE). As these exchanges grow, they have strong potential to rise from a position of regional strength in Asia and achieve global dominance,” Jaswal added.

The combined derivatives contract volume of exchanges in Asia-Pacific exceeded that of exchanges in North America for the first time in the first quarter of 2010, the study said.

Earlier, North America had the highest volume in the 2007-09 period among all the regions, followed by the Asia-Pacific