NSE IPO: No SEBI application yet to trade shares on own platform, says CEO

The Stock Exchange (NSE) has not made any application to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to allow its shares to be traded on its own platform, NSE managing director and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan told CNBC-TV18 on September 11, ahead of the exchange’s much-awaited initial public offering.

The clarification comes as NSE gears up for its IPO, with the exchange set to open the ₹1,700–₹1,785-per-share issue for subscription on September 17. The offer will close on September 21, with anchor investor bidding scheduled for September 16, while the shares are expected to list on September 24.

Asked whether NSE intends to approach SEBI for permission to trade its shares on its own exchange, Chauhan said the exchange has not made any such application.

He added that NSE would comply with whatever the regulator requires.

On the IPO valuation and its discount to BSE despite NSE’s significantly larger market share, Chauhan said the exchange had priced the issue as advised by its merchant bankers.

The CEO also addressed the impact of SEBI’s recent changes to the market framework, including the calibrated additional surveillance (CAS) measures, which have weighed on trading volumes.

Chauhan pointed out that SEBI has taken several difficult measures in the past, with the impact often becoming clearer only over time.

He said some of these measures were initially seen as difficult, but were later found to have increased participation and made the markets safer. The comments come at a time when the industry is discussing possible tweaks to the current framework to ensure that market growth remains sustainable.

NSE’s scale and growth story

At a press conference in Mumbai, Chauhan highlighted NSE’s evolution from a technology-led exchange into a broad-based financial-market infrastructure platform.

“NSE is India’s largest exchange and by many counts, it’s one of the largest in the world. The purpose of NSE was also to channel savings into capital. It’s a testament that NSE has fulfilled the mandate its founders started with,” he said.

Chauhan also pointed to NSE’s presence across asset classes, saying the exchange is among the largest vertically integrated exchanges because it owns its technology and operates across equities, commodities, currencies and electricity markets.

On technology, he said NSE has built standards around continuous availability, with a response time of 500–800 nanoseconds.

NSE reported a profit of ₹10,300 crore in the financial year ended March 2026, down 15% from a year earlier. Its revenue, however, more than doubled from April 2019 to April 2026 to around ₹18,700 crore, helped by the sharp growth in options trading.

The exchange has about 95% market share in cash equities and around 75% in equity derivatives, according to NSE disclosures. It is also the world’s largest derivatives exchange by contracts traded, accounting for roughly 89% of global stock index options volumes in 2025, according to World Federation of Exchanges data.

Investors see further upside

Harsha Raghavan, managing partner at Convergent Finance, told CNBC-TV18 that he foresees “tremendous volume growth” for NSE as India’s wealth increases.

Raghavan described the exchange as a “top down play” and one of the best ways to participate in the financialisation of India. He expects the stock to deliver a 20–25% return in the first six weeks after listing.

He also pointed to improving performance in small- and mid-cap stocks, increased corporate buybacks and a number of companies whose performance remains underappreciated by the market.

Ramesh Damani said NSE has taken Indian markets “out of the stone ages” through the digitalisation of trading, adding that electronic markets have helped democratise participation.

Damani expects the NSE IPO to be “a very well received issue” and believes the exchange can continue to be a growth stock.

He said investors should not focus only on where the headline indices are trading, arguing that there are still plenty of opportunities across the market, including counters that remain overlooked despite delivering strong performance.