The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has become the world’s largest bourse in terms of the number of trades in equity segment for the first six months of 2012.

As per the latest global ranking compiled by the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE), a total of 7,35,474 trades took place in the equity segment of NSE during January-June 2012, making it the world’s largest exchange on this parameter.

NSE was followed by NYSE Euronext and Nasdaq OMX at the second and the third positions. While NYSE Euronext recorded a total of 7,34,154 trades, Nasdaq was close behind with 7,11,779 trades in their respective equity segments during the same period.

Another major Indian bourse, BSE Ltd, recorded a total of 1,87,824 trades during this period in its equity segment.

While the total number of listed companies is much larger in case of the BSE, the exchange lags behind NSE significantly in terms of volume and value of trades.

The WFE data further showed that NSE is the second largest exchange globally after Korea Exchange for index options. The Korea Exchange and NSE were followed by Eurex as third largest exchange worldwide in terms of total number of index options traded during the first six months of 2012.

Experts said that a growing investor base, use of latest technology and new products have helped NSE reach top positions globally. NSE’s platform is connected to two lakh trading terminals in more than 2,000 towns and cities across the country.

The latest data shows that investors from tier-three cities contributed more than 45 per cent of total cash market retail turnover in the financial year 2011-12. Besides, the tier-three cities account for more than half of the total retail investor base on NSE platform.

In the recent past, NSE has launched several new asset classes for different kinds of investors. These include investment products linked to global indices, a dedicated SME platform, currency derivatives, mobile trading, mutual funds trading platform and several sectoral indices.

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