The banking market in Slovakia is gushing with liquidity. Purchasing power has made a leap since the out-in-the-cold 1990s. As in any competitive environment, banks are on the selling side of a brave new world of financial derivatives. As their customers become savvier, risk management will be an important part of the game.

In 2007, Tatra Banka announced a new business partnership with SuperDerivatives. A leader in the commodities trade, SuperDerivatives will deploy its platform via the Slovakian bank. The platform lets users analyze trends in energy, metals and agriculture. In real time, it factors in data on risk and global prices. Traders at Tatra Banka, who have used the firm’s foreign currency platforms, say they like the intuitive interface – as well as its accuracy.

Tatra Banka has relied on SuperDerivatives for setting commodity prices since 2006. For Chairman and CEO Igor Vida, it is part of the bank’s push to build its own knowledge base. An early adopter, Tatra Banka was the first in Slovakia to build an Internet portal and the first to set up call centers and mobile banking. “Our institution has always been known for being innovative. We were the first bank in Slovakia to take many services online,” says Vida.

In the world of futures, forwards and swaps, however, the learning curve will be steep. After all, commodities trade is a relatively new field in Slovakia, where people tend to park their cash in mutual funds and shun risk. With capital markets still weak, the benchmark pricing models of SuperDerivatives can seem intricate to the non-initiated.

Still, Vida is targeting the risk takers and the wealthy. “For the banking sector, the good days are still ahead of us,” he states.