GREENWICH - Interactive Brokers has announced that its recent regulatory approval by the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) allows it to offer private Indian national residents and non-Indian national residents (in conformance with the FEMA Act 2000) market access through its online brokerage platform known as Trader Work Station (TWS).

Interactive Brokers (India) Pvt. Limited, from its Mumbai offices, will allow Indian residents the ability to access more than 80 electronic bourses in 17 countries to which Interactive Brokers Group affiliates have membership.

Indian customers will have immediate access to trading futures and options on the NSE, and IB India expects to offer trading in stocks soon.

Clients will be able to trade these products from a single screen using IB’s technology. The minimum account balance is the Indian rupee equivalent of USD 5,000.

Gerald Perez, Managing Director of IB’s London office said, “We will be focusing on offering our online brokerage services to sophisticated individual investors. Our clients will be allowed not only to trade internationally and on the local NSE market on the same trading platform. The experience for our Indian clients will be high speed online trading to global markets, through our international award-winning trading platform (the IB TraderWorkstationSM), and at ultra-low commissions.”

Resident Indians’ overseas investments are currently restricted to $200,000 per annum by the Reserve Bank of India and investors are currently limited by regulations as to where they can invest.

The costs of doing business abroad through a chain of several brokers can be costly.

IB delivers a far more efficient trading solution drawing multiple global asset classes together and providing low-cost, superior trading technology with real-time risk-management.

Interactive Brokers, established in 1977, has built its own trading and risk-management technology resulting in lower trading costs for its customers.

Commission minimums for Indian options contracts will be INR100 and INR60 per contract + costs (e.g., securities transaction costs, exchange charges, stamp duty and service tax). Minimum futures commissions will also be INR100 and 0.035 per cent of the overall trade value + costs.