FEBRUARY 19: Initial response to online stock trading which does away with bad deliveries and delays pointed to a potential for massive volumes and massive response from NRIs to invest in Indian stocks, the chief of India's first internet broker, Geojit Securities, said here today."Out of the 1,700 online registrations for trading, 1,100 were from NRIs in UAE," said C J George, the managing director of Geojit, who is on a Gulf tour to familiarise NRIs with the opportunities in internet trading, which to a large extent also eliminated NRI complaints of delays and bad transactions. "Though we are moving cautiously letting only a few players to trade online at present, as much as Rs 48 lakh worth of shares were shared in one day by just three account-holders," he told reporters.He said currently Geojit, a Kochi-based broking firm with participation from the Kerala government, allowed account-holders with a credit balance of Rs three lakhs, an exposure of up to Rs one million for online trading". Geojit launched internet trading in Mumbai to become the country's first internet broker.Initially internet trading will be open more to NRIs than to domestic investors as the company was looking for fewer clients and larger volumes. "Internet trading was ideal for NRIs as they could trade real time on the net without taking recourse to a broker or other intermediaries," George said.Geojit currently allowed trading only in 200 shares which are compulsory to be dematted out of a total of about 550 dematted stocks. But these 200 shares accounted for more than 90 per cent of market capitalisation in India, he said. "It will take at least three months for us to aggressively market internet trading," George said, adding that Geojit's daily turnover now was Rs 75 crore. Online trading is offered only to members of its depository services.K V Shamsudheen, the NRI director in Geojit said he received about 50 enquiries daily from prospective NRI investors. Geojit's commission in transactions is one per cent but that could fall with volumes as more and more of the existing 5000 NRI clients of Geojit try online trading, he said.The Geojit chief who is to address investors meetings in Dubai, Doha, Manama and Kuwait before returning to India said on-line trading with Geojit's internet trading module, which allows trading from anywhere in the world ensured transparency, reduced communication costs, time lag and broker specific delays.Marketmen expect at least 25-30 per cent of share deals to be routed through internet. ``I expect a rise in business volume once internet trading kicks off. This has happened in the US where broking firms like Charles Schwab have made their mark. Much will also depend on the cyber laws being put up in the Parliament,'' said a dealer of the National Stock Exchange.In fact, ICICI Ltd has launched an integrated internet based service which allows its customers to place orders for shares over the internet, make payments for them online and hold them in dematerialised form. Investsmart India Ltd, an initiative of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) has already announced that it is geared to commence internet trading. ``The objective of initiating internet trading is to allow quick and easy access to valuable research and information to an investor and enable him to execute transactions faster and more efficiently, as also to provide transparency in investment dealings,'' said an IL&FS official.
