Monday was the first day for China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) to receive applications for accounts with respect to stock futures trading. However, none of the prospective investors in Dongguan succeeded in opening an account on that day, as reported by Dongguan Daily on February 23rd.

"Many people came to ask questions about it, several wanted to open accounts but failed because of incomplete qualification," Great Wall Future, a local futures trading service, revealed to reporters last Monday.

According to the report, many investors were hindered by high threshold and complex procedures in opening an account for stock futures trading.

The CFFEX had set the threshold of 500,000 yuan as the minimum deposit for a single exchange account. In addition, eligible investors were required to have conducted mock trading in index futures for at least 10 trading days in advance along with at least 20 transactions to that date. Alternatively they must have conducted at least 10 transactions in commodities futures markets over the past three years.

China is launching stock index futures, along with margin trading and short selling of stocks and other reforms, to deepen its financial markets with necessary hedging tools and new products. At the same time China hopes to improve liquidity as it aims to build Shanghai into a global financial centre over the next decade.