Bombay Stock Exchange targets 250 mn investors by 2035

The Bombay Stock Exchange has been in existence for close to 140 years. It is the oldest exchange in Asia and also the largest in the world by number of shares listed.

Currently, more than 5,300 shares are listed on the BSE with market capitalisation (wealth) in excess of Rs 75 lakh crore. The BSE has more than 25.7 million investors registered with it.

"Over the last 140 years, the BSE has acted as a catalyst and a first- line regulator for corporate houses to raise necessary funds from small investors and provide adequate returns to the investors in a fair, efficient and transparent manner. Today, its market capitalisation of Rs 75 lakh crore is almost the same in size as that of the entire banking system's asset base of Rs 80 lakh crore," says Ashish Kumar Chauhan, MD and CEO, Bombay Stock Exchange. The BSE Sensex, which was started in 1984- 85 with a base of 1979- 80 as 100, had yesterday breached the historic 24,000 mark. What it indicates is that if you had invested Rs 100 in 1979- 80, today, in 2014, you would have got Rs 24,000 in terms of asset value - a return of 24,000 per cent in 35 years. No other asset class in India would have given such returns on a consistent basis.

"India needs to create 15 million new jobs each year for the next 20 years, meaning 30 crore jobs in the next 20 years.

And the BSE is the only vehicle through which this is possible," says Chauhan.

The CEO adds, " The BSE in the last 20 years has completely reformed itself. It became fully automated in 1995.

Stock depositories and clearing corporations were set up to make microstructure mechanism efficient and robust.

Derivatives in equities, currency and interest rates have been introduced." IPOs now take place through exchanges. BSE is now present in more than 1,700 locations and almost 3,00,000 users across cities and town are watching and trading on BSE each day. In addition to broker offices, investors are now able to watch and trade on BSE using Internet and mobile facilities. BSE has the capacity to take more than five lakh orders in a second and gives median response time of 200 micro seconds, making it amongst the fastest and largest stock exchange systems in the world.

The BSE's vision for 2035 is to have 250 million investors registered with it from the current 25 million investors and market capitalisation of $ 15 trillion from today's $ 1.25 trillion. Chauhan agrees, " It will also depend on the growth of India and the Indian corporate world over the next 20 years. It's a tough but achievable task if we are able to continue to stick to our roots of being primarily an 'Investment Exchange' to the country in times to come."

Courtesy: As appeared in Mail Today