The Budapest Stock Exchange (BSE) has launched an online trading systemised on "warehouse warrants", securities popular with Hungarian farmers to use as collateral for bank loans, the BSE said on Monday.
Grains trading on the exchange has increased recently after a quiet period when farmers offered much of their produce for intervention in 2004-2006, the first years of Hungary's membership of the European Union, which saw record crops.
The bourse hopes the new system, which is for spot physical delivery of wheat, maize, barley, sunflower or rappelled, will provide a new venue for traders and farmers to contact each other.
"Much of the 2-3 million tonnes of produce that we warehouse will show up here," LaSalle Scab, head of warehousing firm Hungarian, told a news conference. In the Hungarian warrant system, farmers can deposit grains in a public warehouse after the harvest and get a certificate allowing them to take a loan from a commercial bank for 70-95 percent of the grain's value.