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Ashish Chauhan is the MD and CEO
of BSE (formerly Bombay Stock
Exchange), the oldest exchange in
Asia and the fastest exchange in
the world with six micro seconds re-
sponse time. BSE is also the largest
exchange in the world with more
than 5000 companies listed.
From 2000 to 2012, prior to joining
BSE, Ashish Chauhan worked at
Reliance Industries limited, India’s
largest business house as President
and Group CIO, Head of Corporate
communications and CEO of Cricket
team Mumbai Indians in its form-
ative years. From 1993 to 2000, he
worked on setting up India’s Nation-
al Stock Exchange (NSE).
He is currently the chairman of
South Asia Federation of Exchanges
with 23 member organisations and is
also a distinguished visiting faculty at
Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada.
red ocean strategy, where there are al-
ready incumbents and you need to battle
it out. The blue ocean strategy addresses
new and nascent opportunities like SMEs,
where we have a 75% share, or public auc-
tions and buybacks.
Mutual funds are also an interesting
area. India is one of the rare countries
where most mutual funds are active rath-
er than passive. Active funds are distribut-
ed through the exchange. We have around
80% market share on these funds, but also
a 20% of all the mutual funds distributed
in India of any kind, largely as a result of
the innovation we’ve introduced around
the former. We also have 50% of all the
new mutual fund customers coming into
the market.
GC: Down the road you’re entering com-
modities.
AC: We are going to launch commodities
in October. We have also become very
large in currencies. Our SME business is
also growing very nicely. We have around
220-odd companies listed, out of which
40 have moved on to the main board and
we have a kind of a structured programme
to encourage that.
We’ll soon have 40-50 in the pipeline,
preparing for IPOs, looking to rai se from
as little as US$100,000 dollars to US$100
million, and we have one layer below that,
an incubator run by Ryerson University of
Canada for the exchange. Through that,
we have funded 146 companies, which
were really small, but many of which have
grown to become 200 people companies
and moved out of the incubator.
GC: Is that incubator layer primarily
FinTech companies?
AC: They are more Hi Tech companies,
but not necessarily FinTech. It’s very
mixed.
GC: I gather you are quite involved in the
SWIFT India project?
AC: We have been working to standard-
ise the messaging infrastructure of the
markets. For the first time anywhere,
SWIFT created a subsidiary in India to
help with that. We basically set up a new
service bureau first to handle messaging
for funds, but with eventual plans to move
into broader securities.
GC: How do you deal with the inertia that
obviously arises from someone having
a system that works and not wanting to
invest in a new one?
AC: It’s a slow process, we have done it in
mutual funds, we have done it in curren-
cies, but you need patience, though from
a technology perspective we can move
very fast.
GC: And I suppose one advantage of SWIFT
generally globally is the ability to reuse
the same messaging infrastructure?
AC: Yes; there are many players who
already do that, but have not been able
to extend the benefits to India. Once this
comes in, it puts them in a better position.
Foreign institutional investors who want
to use providers that are not necessarily
among the big five or six will also be able
to take advantage of that capability.
Spring 2018
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