RBI Announces Forex Trading Platform For Retail Participants

On Thursday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the roll out of a foreign exchange trading platform for retail participants. It said that a circular on operational guidelines for the platform will be issued by June-end.

RBI further said that the platform was developed by the Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) and was being tested by users. It will be made available to users for transactions from early August.

The platform is aimed at providing transparency in pricing and promote competition among the market participants leading to better pricing for all its customers regardless of order size, by unifying the existing fragmented market microstructure.

A discussion paper proposing the set up of such a platform was issued by the central bank in October 2017, providing customers access to an electronic trading platform through an internet based application that allows participants to buy and sell foreign currency at market prices. According to the discussion paper, the forex market would be broadly divided as interbank segment and retail segment with both having the same working hours of 9 am to 5 pm.

Currently, retail customers buy/sell forex over the phone with a bank.