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From under banyan tree to Bombay bourse

125-yr-old exchange now aims to match the world's best
BOMBAY. July 9: It began with a handful of men striking deals under the shady boughs of a banyan tree in an old city street in the 1850s.
These early wheeler-dealers, back in the days of the British raj, formed the "Native Share and Stock Brokers' Association" In 1875. establishing what Is now the oldest stock exchange in Asia.
Today, the association, known to the world as the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), turned 125 years old. averaging daily transactions worth a cool half a billion dollars and plans to match the best bourses In the world.
The BSE aims to expand Its trading facilities to 2.000 centres In the country In another two years and also hopes to spread Its wings overseas. And It has plans for Internet dealing in the near future which will take stocks trading in India truly a millennium away from the shade of Ilie Banyan tree.
Officially. It is now called the Stock Exchange Mumbai, the name it adopted after the lo-caj government replaced the old colonial name for the city It towers 28-storey above the crowded lanes of the old Fort area In south Bombay
The heart ol the country's fi-
nancial capital still lies at the BSE's home on the appropriately named "Dalal Street," translated as "Broker Street*, even though the exchange has lost Its supremacy to the slx-ycar-old National Stock Exchange (NSE) in terms of trading volumes.
The shares of the technology, media and telecommunications firms that hog the brokers' books these days are a far cry from the pre-independence infrastructure companies.
The BSE has around 700 members today and oversees transactions worth over 23 billion rupees (8514 million) every day In nearly 6.000 listed companies.
BSE president Anand Rath! told a news conference on Friday the exchange's current market capitalisation was between 8179 billion and 8201 billion in April. BSE put the figure al 8169 billion
Membership costs a daunting 8560.000.
Satellite links mean investors in over 200 centres dotted around India can now trade electronically on the BSE. Just live years ago trading was centred m (he exchange building Itself
It used Io be bursting with
people, going in after reverently touching the entrance steps, in a sign of obeisance to the Hindu goddess of prosperity — Laxmi.
The streets outside used to overflow with small-volume clay traders, many of whom hovered around to hear stock quotes being announced on a public address system. And the smell or ginger and spice tea wafted in the air from the canteen boys' trays.
These days Dalal Street may still get cloggi d with traffic but the buzz of excitement has gone.
Elderly brokers and Investors, essentially from the Gujarati and Marwarl trading communities of western India, dressed in traditional attire, are no longer seen around the building.
While brokers welcome the transparency, convenience and speed that computerisation has brought, the old-timers miss the vitality of the bygone era.
The open outcry system was lively, there was excitement and people could Judge the undertone of the market, just by the noise.” said veteran Prlyakant Dalal, director of Dalal & Broacha, who traded the market (or over 15 years
The trading ring, an open pit where dealers Jostled with each
other, yelling out quotes an J making signs to Indicate they wanted to buy or sell, is now an airy conference hall.
The noise and bustle has been replaced by stock quotes dancing silently on trading screens.
The BSE was the premier exchange In the country, despite 22 others that mushroomed last century in different parts of India.
But the brokers became high-handed and speculation was rampant, culminating In a scandal In 1992 which shook India's financial community to the core and damaged its reputation Internationally.
Just a year later a bomb exploded at the exchange, killing several people including many day traders.
The exchange got over the bomb blast pretty quickly, but the fallout from the financial scandal dogged it for many years.
The occasional scandal still surfaces, and the regulator, the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI), a year ago requested the BSE's president to resign over a share-price manipulation controversy.
Many brokers acknowledge that competition from the government-promoted NSE was
one of the best things to happen
The NSE was floated as a fully automated exchange with centres around the country and most importantly was professionally managed.
"In the BSE, brokers those days had a feeling they were the masters, they did not feel obliged to serve the investors well and did things at their own convenience," said Dalal.
The problem was that brokers were totally in charge of the exchange management. It was a close-Knit group of people calling the shots with little sense of threat Trading was limited to two hours daily and there was an appalling lack of transparency.
To the credit of the BSE members, many of whom are third generation brokers, they tackled competition on a war looting and got even on technology and Initiative.
Though brokers still occupy positions on the exchanges governing board, the majority are held by public representatives.
Pushed by the SEBI. the BSE and NSE are rapidly putting In place tri hnologics. safety measures .iiid new trading Instruments like index futures
— Reuters Feature