Garry Jones, the global head of derivatives at US stock exchange NYSE Euronext, knows better than most the US futures market has not been a happy hunting ground for European exchanges.

The world's largest national derivatives market has been dominated by domestic US giants, including the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade, and entrants have struggled and, ultimately, failed to establish themselves in the US. The best example of this was in 2006, when Eurex US, an ambitious plan by the Swiss-German exchange to break into the US, was finally abandoned just two years after opening.