New stock exchange begins operations in Mumbai

MUMBAI - The United Stock Exchange (USE), a new stock exchange for currency derivatives, began its operations here on Monday.

Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) C. . Bhave inaugurated the stock exchange.

According to officials, the USE will concentrate on retail investors while keeping the costs low.

“What we want to do right now is that we are laying the infrastructure, we are laying the policies. We are bringing together all the stakeholders and keeping costs significantly down, so that when the take-off happens we are extremely well-positioned to leverage the take-off,” said Madhu Kannan, Chief Executive Officer, Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), a state-owned entity.

“So, that is the focus. Our business strategy is keep cost tight, focus on appropriate selling of a product across different stakeholders, different customers, be retail or institutional, small or large,” he added.

The new bourse will commence operations in four currency pairs currently allowed by SEBI, namely the dollar-rupee, euro-rupee, yen-rupee and pound-rupee.

“Any future exchange in currency should have a lot of retail investors trading in the exchange. It is because there is no underlining, as such. And we will try to reach out to more and more individuals, retails and others, because of our network of shareholders comprising of all banks,” said T S Narayan Swami, Chief Executive Officer, United Stock Exchange.

The exchange has been formed through a unique public-private partnership, with equity participation of 32 of both Public Sector Units and private sector banks. (ANI)