SHAHISTA

Wholesale Debt Market Segment

The Exchange started its trading operations in June 1994 by enabling the Wholesale Debt Market (WDM) segment of the Exchange. This segment provides a trading platform for a wide range of fixed income securities that includes Central government securities, treasury bills (T-bills), state development loans (SDLs), bonds issued by public sector undertakings (PSUs), floating rate bonds (FRBs), zero coupon bonds (ZCBs), index bonds, commercial papers (CPs), certificates of deposit (CDs), corporate debentures, SLR and non-SLR bonds issued by financial institutions (FIs), bonds issued by foreign institutions and units of mutual funds (MFs). To further encourage wider participation of all classes of investors, including the retail investors, the Retail Debt Market segment (RDM) was launched on January 16, 2003. This segment provides for a nationwide, anonymous, order driven, screen based trading system in government securities. The settlement cycle is same as in the case of equity market i.e., T+2 rolling settlement cycle.

Trading Mechanism
The WDM trading system, known as NEAT (National Exchange for Automated Trading), is a fully automated screen based trading system that enables members across the country to trade simultaneously with enormous ease and efficiency. It supports an anonymous order driven market which operates on a price/time priority and provides tremendous flexibility to users in terms of orders with various time/price/quantity related conditions that can be placed on the system. It also provides on-line market information like total order depth, best buys and sells available, quantity traded, the high, low and last traded price for securities are available at all points of time. The WDM Trading system provides two market sub-types: Continuous Market Negotiated Market.

 In the CONTINUOUS MARKET, the buyer and seller do not know each other and they put their best buy/sell orders, which are stored in order book with price/time priority.

If orders match, it results into a trade. The trades in WDM segment are settled directly between the participants, who take an exposure to the settlement risk attached to any unknown counter-party.
In the NEAT-WDM system, all participants can set up their counter-party exposure limits against all probable counter-parties. This enables the trading member/participant to reduce/ minimize the counterparty risk associated with the counter-party to trade. A trade does not take place if both the buy/ sell participants do not invoke the counter-party exposure limit in the trading system.

 In the NEGOTIATED MARKET, the trades are normally decided by the seller and the buyer outside the exchange, and reported to the Exchange through a trading member for approval.
Thus, deals negotiated or structured outside the exchange are disclosed to the market through NEAT-WDM system. In negotiated market, as buyers and sellers know each other and have agreed to trade, no counter-party exposure limit needs to be invoked.

The trades on the WDM segment could be either outright trades or repo transactions with settlement cycle of T+2 and repo periods (1 to 14 days). For every trade, it is necessary to specify the number of settlement days and the trade type (repo or non-repo), and in the event of a repo trade, the repo term and repo rate.

Transaction Charges
The Exchange has waived the transaction charges for the Wholesale Debt Market segment of the Exchange for the period April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.

Settlement
Settlement is on a rolling basis, i.e. there is no account period settlement. Each order has a unique settlement date specified upfront at the time of order entry and used as a matching parameter. It is mandatory for trades to be settled on the predefined settlement date. The Exchange currently allows settlement periods ranging from same day (T+0) settlement to a maximum of (T+2) for non-government securities while settlement of all outright secondary market transactions in government securities was standardized to T+1.

 In case of repo transactions in government securities, first leg can be settled either on T+0 basis or T+1 basis. In case of government securities, the actual settlement of funds and securities are effected directly between participants or through Reserve Bank of India (RBI). All trades in government securities are reported to RBI-SGL through the Negotiated Dealing System (NDS) of RBI, and Clearing Corporation of India Limited (CCIL) provides settlement guarantee for transactions in government securities including repos. The trades are settled on a net basis through the DvP-III system. In the DvP-III, the settlement of Securities and Funds are carried out on a net basis.

For securities other than government securities and T-bills, trades are settled on a gross basis directly between participants on delivery versus payment basis.

 On the scheduled settlement date, the Exchange provides data/information to the respective member/participant regarding trades to be settled on that day with details like security, counter party and consideration. The settlement details for non-government securities, i.e. certificate no., Cheque no., constituent etc. are reported by the member/participant to the Exchange. The Exchange closely monitors the settlement of transactions through the reporting of settlement details by members and participants. In case of deferment of settlement or cancellation of trade, participants are required to seek prior approval from the Exchange. For any dispute arising in respect of the trades or settlement, the exchange has established arbitration mechanism for resolving the same.