BTTV exclusive: NSE's Ashishkumar Chauhan & Srinivas Injeti on tradeoff between profitability and excessive speculation

Shares of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd (NSE) on Thursday made a historic debut on Dalal Street. NSE stock listed at Rs 1,800 against the IPO issue price of Rs 1,785 on BSE. Later, the stock ended 1.79% higher at Rs 1817. In an exclusive interview with Business Today's Group Editor Siddharth Zarabi, NSE CEO and MD Ashishkumar Chauhan and Chairperson Srinivas Injeti talked about the listing of India's largest stock exchange on BSE.

Replying to a query on the objective of maintaining huge profitability amid commercial pressure to keep trading volumes up and responsibility to prevent speculation, Injeti said this a business in which one has to be responsible. 
 
"We have been profitable and at the same time we were also responsible. We were also a competent regulator. So post listing also, there is no difference. You can be profitable in a responsible way. You cannot increase your margins or increase you profitability at the cost of investor or at the cost of the market," said Injeti.

Talking about the revenue composition, Injeti said 80 percent of it comes from trading activities and 20% from related activities.

Injeti said NSE needs to diversify revenue streams.

NSE originally started as technology firm. "We generate data and data can also be monetised within what is permissible under regulatory framework," said the NSE chairperson.

Agreeing with Injeti, Chauhan said, "We have been responsible regulator first and then responsible business."

Corroborating his statement, Chauhan said NSE started with 700 trades a day. On a good day, NSE conducts 30 crore trades per session.

Adding to Chauhan's statement, Injeti said NSE enjoys economies of scale advantage as it is the largest exchange of the country. In case of launch of new products, there may not be any additional costs. NSE has technology, NSE has manpower. Hence, the exchange may only have to incur variable costs, added Injeti.