The new products are ready for launch, and will go live in the coming months.

Nicolas Bertrand, head of equities and derivatives at the LSE, said: “We are reacting to demand from our Idem clients. We will start with about 10 blue chip companies from across Europe.”

Idem already lists 158 single stock futures (SSFs) and options on Italian stocks. The new instruments will have similar specifications to the contracts listed at Eurex and Liffe, but “people want something compatible with Idem’s current operational framework,” Bertrand said. “For an Italian client to trade Spanish single stock futures on Eurex there are a lot of things to set up and it’s very costly to manage.”

LSE’s other established derivatives market, EDX London, is down 45% on year-to-date volume because of the loss of its Swedish, Danish and Finnish business at the end of 2009. This had relied on a partnership with Nasdaq OMX, which came to an end in December.

Although EDX quickly launched its own range of Nordic derivatives such as FTSE indices for each country, virtually all the volume in Swedish, Danish and Finnish derivatives has stayed with Nasdaq OMX.

Bertrand said that, having consulted its members, EDX was now working towards delisting its Swedish, Danish and Finnish products, due to a lack of customer demand and consequent low volumes.

EDX remains fully committed to the Norwegian market, however, where its partnership with Oslo Børs is still working well. Between them, the two exchanges host 98% of Norwegian equity derivatives trading.