India INX Global Access IFSC Limited (India INX GA), a subsidiary of India INX, on Friday said that it has onboarded 180 users in its new platform that was launched in November last year. About 148 trades —outbound transactions — have been put through by these registered users, which included resident Indians as well as NRIs over the last four months.  

India INX GA said its platform was much better in several attributes as compared to its competitors. Without naming the competitor (NSEIFSC), which on Thursday went live with its offering that enabled resident Indian investors to trade in 8 top notch US companies, V Balasubramaniam, Managing Director & CEO, India INX, said India INX GA’s offering has several “salient advantages “over the competition’s offering. 

24 hours trading

He said that India INX GA’s platform has been running over the last four months. It enables investors to buy shares of foreign companies and not unsponsored depository receipts.

“Our platform is open 24 hours a day for five days in a week and we offer access to 135 stock exchanges in 33 countries and dealing in 23 currencies,” he said. 

Balasubramaniam highlighted that the India INX GA platform is not only for stocks but for exchange-traded funds, mutual funds and derivatives also. However, derivatives access will not be there for Indian investors as the RBI had last year stipulated that the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) will not be available for derivatives. On the other hand, NSEIFSC’s outbound Product offering is only for stocks and that too for 50 stocks in the US markets. 

‘Truly fractional’

“Our platform is also truly fractional (unlike competition). If somebody wants to buy Tesla shares worth $ 1, they can do so from our platform. Whereas our competition offers it in certain ratios of depository receipts. So we are truly fractional,” he said. 

He also highlighted that India INX GA’s onboarding is completely digital. On the cost front, trading through India INX GA would be more beneficial for investors from India, he said.

Direct exposure to shares

First, they get direct exposure to shares and not to depository receipts as being provided by NSEISFC’s product offering. There is also no market maker involved in India INX GA’s offering as against the competition, which has a market maker in the unsolicited ADR market, Balasubramaniam noted. 

“There is no market making cost or a demat cost in our solution. Ours is much more cost competitive. Our platform cost is a fraction of the cost offered by our competition,” Balasubramaniam said. 

He also highlighted that India INX GA’s offering is fully operational while the depository receipts-based offering of the competition is a sandbox offering. India INX, which is a subsidiary of BSE Limited, is the first Exchange that became functional in the Gift City, the country’s sole international financial services centre. 

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