According to NSE deputy managing director, Ravi Narain, the response from members confirms NSE's stand that there is massive interest among the Indian broking community to venture into the area of futures trading in equities.

The NSE top brass had earlier maintained that atleast 500 of its members would be keen to take part in derivatives trading. It is for this reason that NSE had earlier decided not to increase the minimum networth criteria for existing brokers if they wanted to be a trading member for derivatives.

"The rate at which the certification process is moving we could see member participation much beyond our expectations. Certification is acritical aspect of introduction of derivatives and members seem to have handled this change fairly well", said Narain.

"The feedback we get from members is that with rolling settlements around the corner, arbitrage between two exchanges is going to shift to arbitrage between two segments ie cash and futures. The market has realised that the futures market is going to pull up the volumes of the underlying cash market as well and hence the greater sense of acceptance", said Narain.

The NSE certification programme for derivatives is the first of its kind in India and was recently approved by Sebi. It is a fully automated testing system where the entire test is conducted on-line and members are informed instantaneously of their success or failure.

Introduction of derivatives is currently awaiting the nod from the parliament which has to clear an amendment in the Securities Contract and Regulations Act (SCRA) to include equity derivatives in the category of securities. NSE is going ahead with thecertification programme so that its members can kick off trading in derivatives as soon as the go-ahead comes through. The software and the trading systems are already in place.

The exchange has been working on the derivatives project for the past three years but lack of policy decision to this end has led to delays. There is now a unanimity among the government and the regulator that it is time that derivatives trading is introduced in the country. "We will start enrolling members to the derivatives segment the minute we get the approval from Sebi to do so. We are from our side ready for derivatives trading", said Narain.