38 The Four Basic Transformations suggested an alliance. Deutsche Terminbörse (DTB) was a couple of years behind SOFFEX, but the two exchanges agreed to cooperate, starting with DTB's agreement to license SOFFEX's software. Between that first planning meeting in 1982 and the official opening of SOFFEX on May 19, 1988, six years passed. The Swiss achievement needs to be appreciated for the fact that though there were several prior attempts to create electronic exchanges, this was the first time that an exchange was being created with an integrated electronic clearing house. The first stage in develop- ment was the creation of systems to broadcast price quotes electronically. The second stage involved adding the ability to actually match trades online. This was achieved by OM. The third stage was to integrate the matching engine with the clearing system. SOFFEX was first to do this. DTB: The Other Half of the World's Biggest Exchange Deutsche Terminbörse (DTB), an exchange that no longer exists, will always be known for two things. First, it was the first exchange in modern history to steal a liquid, successful market from another exchange (the German Bund from LIFFE). Second, it was half of the 1998 DTB/SOFFEX partnership that became Eurex, the world's dominant derivatives exchange for almost a decade until the 2007 mega-merger of the two giant Chicago derivatives exchanges, the CME and the CBOT. Both of these achievements were the result of screen-based trading. The idea of a German futures and options exchange came from some vision- aries at the German banks--people like Rolf Breuer at Deutsche Bank, who would later rise to become chairman of the bank as well as chairman of Deut- sche Boerse AG, the holding company of all the German exchanges. 14 The group of banks recruited Jorg Franke, then general manager of the Berlin Stock Exchange, to set up the new derivatives venture. The Germans had a problem that was similar to that of the Swiss and the wool guys in New Zealand: The banks putting the exchange together were located in Berlin, Hamburg, Stutt- gart, Munich, and Hanover, so locating the exchange at any one of the cities would not allow all the rest of them to have convenient access to the trading floor. The only place that would work for all of them was cyberspace. But to be electronic, the DTB needed a system, and the banks decided that instead of starting from scratch it was better to buy the system from their Swiss neighbors, who were a full two years ahead. They also hired Andersen Consult- ing to tweak the SOFFEX software so that it met the trading requirements of the German banks. The banks also needed to get the national Stock Exchange Act amended so that futures were no longer considered gambling and the con- tracts would consequently become legally binding. By the end of 1989, everything was mostly in place and a start date of January 29, 1990, was announced. The launch date was met, but not without some