Asia-Index aims to make India hub for South-East Asia markets

Leading index provider Asia Index Pvt Ltd, a joint venture between BSE and S and P Dow Jones Indices, is planning to make India a hub for its business activities in the Southeast Asian markets.

The joint venture, between India's oldest and largest stock exchange and a global giant with both having parentage of over 100 years each, has already launched a large number of index products here and is now looking at opportunities in neighbouring countries.

"We want to make this a hub for the South East Asian markets. At times, the timezones do not match, if we are working from New York for example."We are here in a very good timezone when it comes to catering to the South East Asian countries. The idea would be to roll-out products and be a support system for markets in South East Asia," Asia Index Director (Business Development) Koel Ghosh said.

Besides, Asia Index would continue to launch new products within India.

"The idea of this business is not only to maintain the existing indices, but grow out and create more indices which are relevant for local markets and also bring the global expertise that we have to the Indian turf," Ghosh told PTI in an interview here.

Asked what are the areas she was looking at in the neighbouring countries, Ghosh said, "We are working with markets like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh."Sri Lanka is far more advanced between the two and we have an investible index called SL20 in Sri Lanka. It is set of 20 stocks. The Sri Lankan markets are in their early days when it comes to ETF and this is a very good product for ETF," she said.

"With Bangladesh, we have done a consultation on Shariah product, on a 30-stock product and a broader index. Both of them have taken consultation from us and they are looking into it."

"There are other smaller markets also which are coming up. Every market is different. We are looking at the frontier markets and other places in South East Asia," Ghosh said.

BSE and S and P Down Jones Indices announced this strategic partnership in February 2013.Talking about the partnership, Ghosh said, "BSE is primarily in exchange business and we are into index business and both of us have been in our respective businesses for over 100 years."

"It was a natural partnership given the similar kinds of parentage we have had. We are a leading index provider globally and BSE wanted an expert to come in and so we formed a JV and incorporated this as an Indian company. We have co-branded all the existing indices and also got technology on the ground. We have a big IT team and then we started expanding and today we have a 40-member team here at BSE including those in technology," she added.