While awaiting the final clearance from Sebi, which is likely to be received by November 18, the managing director of ICSEI, Joseph Massey, has chalked out a strategic programme to start off mock trading from November 22. The final clearance is the registration of the exchange for the purpose of conducting trading operations. The mock trading has been spread over a period of over 10 days. To begin with, the exchange will commence its mock operations with 10 stocks including pivotals like ITC, Reliance and SBI. Only four exchanges are likely to participate in the initial phase of the mock trading -- Bangalore, Uttar Pradesh, Coimbatore and Saurashtra Kutch stock exchange.

According to exchange officials, the training would be imparted to the brokers and the administrative staff of the regional stock exchanges in a phased manner. ``The training would help provide an insight into the working of the exchange -- technical, regulatory and market operation related functions,'' explained Massey.

Massey also pointed out that representatives of Indigo, the software vendor and ABN Amro, the clearing bank of the exchange would continue to remain at these stock exchanges for at least two months, till the brokers get tuned to the trading system. Although ABN Amro has been appointed as the clearing bank for the exchange, the day-to-day operations of both stock clearance and collection of margins would be done by Vysya Bank. ``Our clearing bank has tied up with Vysya Bank for conducting the day-to-day operations, especially that of margin collection and security deposits,'' added Massey.

It should be recalled that ISE is a unique combination of 15 regional stock exchanges namely, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Cochin, Mangalore, Rajkot, Baroda, Indore, Bhubaneshwar, Jaipur, Kanpur, Ludhiana, Magadh, Guwahati and Chennai. ISE would permit brokers of one exchange to trade directly with the member brokers of another participating exchange.