China has no shortage of stock and derivatives exchanges. So it may have seemed odd last month when another one was launched as a three-way joint venture between the Hong Kong, Shanghai and Shenzhen bourses.

China Exchanges Services Company (CESC), as the new entity is known, is incorporated in Hong Kong. It has its own website and a circular, red and blue logo, as if designed to transmit a sense of a well-established record.

So what is it for? Its backers say it will develop new financial products such as index-linked and other equity derivatives, cross-border indices based on products traded on the three markets, and develop industry classifications for listed companies. In so doing it will “connect the rest of the world to the trading markets in Hong Kong and mainland China”.