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With the close of trading today, United Stock Exchange of India Limited (USE), the youngest stock exchange in the country operating in the currency derivatives segment, successfully completed its first year of operations with 441 million contracts traded. The exchange’s market share in currency futures in India has grown steadily, stabilizing at approximately 22% in recent months. The average turnover on the exchange is in excess of 100 billion Rupees, or over $2 billion in notional value on a daily basis. Marking its first anniversary tomorrow, the exchange completed 246 trading and clearing cycles in its first year of operations.
USE launched on Sept. 20, 2010 with opening day volume of 9.88 million contracts, establishing a world record for first-day trading at a new exchange. Month-on-month volume has steadily increased since that time.
Mr. T S Narayanasami, MD and CEO of USE, said: “On the first anniversary of United Stock Exchange, I would like to convey my profound thanks to our Regulators, Stakeholders and Market Participants for the faith they have reposed in the exchange. In the last one year we have expanded our membership base, helping us inch closer to our founding vision of becoming India’s most preferred stock exchange, bringing together the entire financial community. We remain committed to building USE as an enduring symbol of India’s financial markets and contributing to the growth of the industry. We continuously strive to provide a range of financial instruments for diverse market participants and enable greater access to various cross-sections of the economy. We have focused on investor education and training workshops across the country. As we enter our second year of operations, we look forward to playing a more crucial role in the ever-evolving and vibrant financial landscape.”
USE’s stakeholders include the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), 28 banks and three major corporate houses. Recently, Standard Chartered Bank has also come on board as a shareholder, representing its first strategic investment in an exchange worldwide.
“USE puts forward a strong, robust platform for our customers to trade in a highly secure and reliable environment that offers enhanced liquidity, diversity of participants, innovative technology and trustworthy clearing services,” Mr. Narayanasami said.
The exchange offers trading in currency futures on the U.S. dollar, British pound, Euro and Japanese yen, all trading against the Indian Rupee (USD-INR, GBP-INR, Euro-INR and Yen-INR pairs) as well as currency options on the USD-INR pair. USE offers access through its front-end, Fastrade. The exchange also allows various other platforms for automated trading, including the NEST platform of Omnesys Technologies. USE has filed an application to list interest rate futures and is awaiting regulatory approval.
To date, United Stock Exchange has received 550 membership applications and has 372 trading members registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), with 52 SEBI-registered clearing members. Ten banks have been empanelled with USE for providing clearing and settlement services. USE has continuously worked with trade and industry associations and entered into memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with India’s largest professional associations of accountants and corporate secretaries, giving the respective members access to become members of USE.
