The Indian capital markets regulator, SEBI, is talking reforms as it recently announced a blueprint that is potentially set to increase competition among exchanges. The regulator’s stance on increasing competition and allowing foreign investment in exchanges was closely anticipated in recent months, especially among large global banks. SEBI had to address pressing concerns on attracting [...]

Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology has been receiving a lot of attention in the high frequency trading community in recent months. It is essentially a hardware related technology pioneered by scientists in the semiconductor/electronics industry. FPGA, as its name suggests, consists of programmable logical gate arrays, which can be used to implement desired logical [...]

The Indian wealth management market is dominated by domestic wealth management providers in the mass affluent segment, while international firms and private banks are strong players in the high and ultra-high net worth segment. Insurance providers are dominant players in the mass market. Brokerages and retail banks have started separate wealth management businesses and they [...]

High frequency trading (HFT) has been in news recently, especially after the US stock market crash, also called ‘Flash Crash’ of May 6, 2010 which created sudden panic in the market for a few minutes. Many have blamed high frequency traders and rogue algorithms for suddenly pulling out liquidity, reacting to uncertainty in the market. [...]

The year 2010 was a good one for PE in India. India posted the highest growth rate in PE deal value among all major economies in Asia-Pacific, clocking 111% growth, ahead of China’s 56% growth. The deal activity in India doubled to about US$7.4 billion, compared to US$3.5 billion in 2009. The past decade saw [...]

The RBI recently brought out a discussion paper on giving out new banking licences to business houses and non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to increase competition in the sector, and also expand the reach of banking services across the country. The estimated banking penetration in India is about 45% among middle and high income groups and [...]

‘Greater financial inclusion’ figures prominently on the economic development agenda set by the Indian government in recent times. The much-talked-about UID project which aims to provide unique identity numbers to all Indian citizens, and links the number up with a compulsory bank account is indeed a bold step towards realizing that goal. The recent buzz [...]

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently put out a draft report on introducing credit default swaps as OTC derivatives product for corporate bonds in India. Two attempts to introduce the product were already made earlier in 2003 and 2007. The timing of the latest proposal indicates that perhaps the central bank was waiting for [...]

The Securities Contracts (Regulation) Rules (SCRR), 1957 was recently amended to incorporate a minimum 25% public float for all listed companies – private and public. The amendment also applies to listed statutory corporations. Public float is defined as that part of a listed company’s shares that are not held by the promoter. The proposal to [...]

The Indian microfinance industry comprises of numerous microfinance providers who are spread all across the country. The starting point of complexity in regulating the industry lies in the diverse nature of institutional forms they are registered as, viz. – NBFC-MFIs, cooperative societies, non-profit organization, trusts, all subject to different laws. The Draft Micro Financial Sector [...]