In a tightly controlled derivatives market like India’s, regulatory permission to launch a new product is like the starting gun in a race. Several exchanges are off, hurrying to attract liquidity before their rivals conquer the field. As Benjamin Beasley-Murray reports, the hardest battle now is over FX derivatives. Each exchange believes it has a fighting chance – but is there room for more than one?
Currency derivatives markets are rapidly becoming fertile ground for exchanges in India, as regulators open up the instruments that can be traded. But as a fierce three-way battle breaks out between the National Stock Exchange, the MCX Stock Exchange and United Stock Exchange, observers reckon that the soil will surely soon be drenched in the blood of two of these combatants.On April 8, the Competition Commission of India ordered an investigation into allegations by MCX-SX that the NSE had been guilty of predatory pricing....