About ACE
The Agricultural Commodity Exchange for Africa (ACE) is a spot and
forward market commodity exchange, meaning that all contracts
require a physical delivery of commodities either immediately,
or at a specified future date.
Contracts on ACE will clearly specify commodity
specifications. ACE has adopted widely used regional commodity
quality standards as ACE standards for this purpose,
to create a general reference point for trade in agricultural
commodities. ACE is promoting the harmonisation of standards, but
will trade using any specified quality specifications, until
the market moves towards more harmonised quality standards. On
ACE it is up to the buyer and seller to agree which quality
specification to use and to specify these in the
contract.
ACE is promoting three main concepts of trade integrated into
the ACE trading system.
Depositors can deposit commodity in an ACE certified storage
facility and receive a warehouse receipt. The receipt is the
essential document in the system. The storage operator will
guarantee that the quantity and quality stated on the receipt, is
what the holder of that receipt will be able to collect
at any given time. This gurantee enables
the banks to finance the warehouse receipt with the
underlying commodity as collateral; and gives the buyer
of the warehouse receipt confidence that the commodity is in
safe storage and that delivery is without the traditional
risks.
A warehouse receipt is traded on ACE; a buyer deposits the
contract value into the ACE Settlement Account and ACE will settle
all outstanding liens, such as storage fees, finance and finance
costs, before transferring the balance to the seller.
The BVO system works like a real time reversed auction. It is
designed for buyers of large quantities to retrieve a price
discovery from the market before contracting suppliers. A buyer
request ACE to place a BVO to buy with a certain quantity including
all terms and conditions, but with no specified price. ACE notifies
all registered suppliers and invites them to offer prices at a real
time trade session. At the end of the session the buyer can select
competitive offers and ACE will generate the contracts and settle
the trade.
The OVO is the exactly opposite where a seller request ACE to
place an OVO to sell with a certain quantity including all terms
and conditions, but with no specified price. ACE notifies all
registered buyers and invites them to bid at a real time trade
session. At the end of the session the seller can select
competitive bids to buy and ACE will generate the contracts and
settle the trade.
Anyone who wants to sell or buy agricultural commodities can
contact ACE or an ACE certified broker to place an offer to sell or
a bid to buy. All bids and offers can be seen on the live
market nformation screen. Select a bid or an offer and all
details and terms and conditions will be stated. All bids and
offers are live and active and can be accepted online by ACE or an
ACE certified broker to generate a binding contract.
ACE is generating real time market information from these
bids/offers and contracts generated. This information is public and
available to all. ACE disseminates the information through this
website, daily trade reports on email and the ESOKO mobile market
information system. Please contact ACE if you are interested in
receiving this information.