Under the leadership of Sundararaman Ramamurthy, the exchange has lined up several changes in the cash market, equity derivatives, as well as currency derivatives.
For the cash segment, BSE has reduced the tick size to just 1 paisa for stocks below Rs 100. The move has already started to yield results, with the turnover for stocks in this segment growing 14 per cent in March.
Strikes with an interval of 10 paise strike interval have contributed to 64 per cent of the US dollar/rupee turnover in March.
The lot sizes of the Sensex will be reduced from 15 to 10; for Bankex Index derivatives, from 20 to 15. The change is aimed at lowering the lot size and thereby the margin to attract traders.
The exchange will also reach out to brokers and traders, highlighting the benefits of the product tweaks and low costs. It will also underscore the high correlation between the Sensex and the Nifty — the most popular index derivatives.
“The exchange has been in dialogue with several top brokers like Zerodha, Upstox, ICICI Securities, and Axis Securities. On many platforms, the BSE was not getting access and prices were not being shown to traders. The BSE is engaging with them to facilitate the same,” said a person in the know.
Notwithstanding lower costs, the BSE has failed to develop any cracks in NSE’s dominant position.
“The impact costs for the BSE are on the higher side. It is like a chicken-and-egg situation. All these product tweaks are innovative but traders won’t move unless there is liquidity. And liquidity cannot be generated until traders move,” said a broker.
Meanwhile, in the derivatives segment, its market share has dropped to near-zero, from 2.5 per cent at the end of last financial year.