The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has launched a trading platform for small and medium-sized companies that are already listed on the BSE or one of the regional stock exchanges. The so-called BSE Indonext trading platform, which is part of the existing BSE Online Trading (BOLT) system, is a joint venture between the BSE and the Federation of Indian Stock Exchanges (FISE), to which eighteen regional stock exchanges belong. BSE IndoNext will introduce the concept of Single Order Book for a security for the first time in India.
Securities of companies listed on the BSE or one of the eighteen regional exchanges, and with paid-up capital of between INR 30 million (US$ 0.68 million) and INR 200 million (Us$4.55 million), are eligible to trade on the BSE Indonext market.
“BSE Indonext will help create a wider market for the SMEs already listed on BSE and on the RSEs,” says a spokesman for Citigroup in Mumbai. “A vibrant market will encourage both the exiting SMEs to raise capital and also attract new SMEs to this market.”
Initially, 511 securities from two currently traded groups on the BSE and 9 more currently listed on other stock exchanges, will be traded under a BSE IndoNext segment to be known as the “S” group. All the usual trading, settlement, risk management, and surveillance monitoring practices applicable to stocks trading on BSE will also be applicable to securities trading in the “S” group. “If any of these scrips are transferred for surveillance reasons to ‘trade-to-trade’ category, they will be shifted to a new group called the ‘TS’ where settlements take place on trade-to-trade basis,” adds the Citigroup spokesman.