Trading volumes in India will increase as a result of the country introducing direct market access (DMA) trading on its two stock exchanges, according to Scott Field-Marsham, managing director and head of electronic trading in Asia at investment bank Morgan Stanley.
Field-Marsham expects DMA trading to eventually account for a significant proportion of overall trading in the country. “We anticipate that institutional DMA activity as a percentage of total institutional activity will increase over time to somewhere between 20% to 40%,” Field-Marsham told theTRADEnews.com.
Morgan Stanley executed its first DMA trades on India’s two exchanges, National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) on 11 July. Fellow investment bank BNP Paribas announced on 14 July that it had completed its first DMA trade on the NSE.
According to Field-Marsham, Morgan Stanley is seeing “strong demand” from customers across all regions for DMA in India. Morgan Stanley executed its Indian DMA trades after receiving formal approval to deliver DMA services to firms registered as foreign institutional investors for both equities and listed derivatives on the NSE and BSE. Morgan Stanley’s Passport Windows proprietary electronic trading application has been certified by both the NSE and BSE.