BSE in talks to acquire United Stock Exchange: report

Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) is in preliminary talks for acquiring the loss-making United Stock Exchange, as the country's oldest bourse looks for new business opportunities to take on its younger but bigger rival National Stock Exchange (NSE), reports quoting senior BSE officials said.

BSE launched currency futures and options in November 2013, interest rates futures in January and equity derivatives on 7 February this year on its Bolt Plus Live platform, ''from where it is also launching equity cash segment trading on April 7 this year.

BSE, already a strategic partner in USE with a 15-per cent stake and its single-largest shareholder as of end-December 2013, hopes the acquisition to bring synergies in business.

USE, the fourth pan-India exchange which went operational in September 2010, reported a widening of its net loss to Rs57.13 lakh in the three months ended December last year, from a net loss of Rs5.28 lakh in the 2013 September quarter.

USE's net worth has plummeted to around Rs115 crore against the minimum capital level of Rs100 crore prescribed by market regulator SEBI.

Public Sector Banks that are stakeholders of USE include Allahabad Bank, Corporation Bank, Punjab National Bank, Andhra Bank, Dena Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Syndicate Bank, Bank of India, Indian Bank, UCO Bank, Bank of Maharashtra, Indian Overseas Bank, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, United Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Punjab and Sind Bank and Vijaya Bank.

Private Sector Banks like Axis Bank, Federal Bank, J&K Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are also stakeholders in USE. Corporate Institutions such as Riddhi Siddhi Bullions Limited, MMTC, Jaypee Capital Services and India Potash also own stakes in USE.

BSE also announced it will launch equity trading on Bolt Plus, the country's fastest trading platform, from 7 April.

The Bolt+ system has a response time of approximately 200 micro seconds, making it the fastest trading platform in the country today.

BSE upgraded its technology platform in November 2013 to BOLT+. The BSE trading system (Bolt Plus) is based on T7, the global trading architecture of Deutsche Bourse AG. The new technology is open source and also low-cost, according to BSE.

Since 1994, NSE had a technology edge over BSE and now, with the Bolt+ system, BSE is capable of offering a trading speed which is several times faster than rival exchange and can be scaled up to 100 times in three years from now.