MarketAxess' new platform seeks to draw investors to trade India bonds
Earlier this week, the first trade on the platform was executed between BlackRock and Standard Chartered Bank (India), MarketAxess said. The platform is integrated with the Clearing Corporation of India's NDS-Order Matching system, enabling foreign investors to place bids and offers directly.
"I am very optimistic about the adoption of electronic trading as it solves operational inefficiencies that investors face," said Riad Chowdhury, head of Asia-Pacific at MarketAxess said on Friday.
Reducing the size of funds they need to maintain in custodial bank accounts and automating trade-related processes could draw more foreign investors to using the tool, as index inclusions keep Indian debt on the radar, investors said.
"The goal is to onboard all our clients who are able to trade Indian government bonds on our platform." said Chowdhury, adding that there is optimism this may happen in the next 6-12 months.
The firm has more than 1,400 global emerging market institutional investors among its clients including asset managers, hedge funds, central banks and sovereign wealth funds.
Indian government bonds were added to JPMorgan's emerging market debt index over a year ago and to Bloomberg's Emerging Market Local Currency Index at the start of 2025. They are also set to be included in the FTSE Russell index from September.
Over the past 13 months, since being added to JPMorgan's EM debt index, overseas investors have net purchased nearly 1 trillion Indian rupees ($11.43 billion) of bonds.
($1 = 87.4690 Indian rupees)
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