MarketAxess launches electronic trading platform for foreign investors in Indian bonds

MUMBAI, June 17 (Reuters) - U.S.-based MarketAxess Holdings said on Tuesday it has launched electronic trading services for Indian government bonds, making it the first platform to give foreign investors direct access to the market.

The platform will be linked to the Clearing Corporation of India's trading system NDS-Order Matching platform, which will let foreign investors bid and offer securities directly along with local investors, MarketAxess said.

"By integrating directly with the NDS-OM system operated by the Clearing Corporation of India Limited, our solution is designed to increase efficiency across the entire trading workflow, from pre-trade allocation to post-trade reporting,” said Riad Chowdhury, head of Asia-Pacific at MarketAxess.

The CCIL did not reply to a Reuters email for comment.

Foreign investors are increasingly trading Indian government bonds since they became a part of JPMorgan's emerging market debt index in June 2024 and Bloomberg's Emerging Market Local Currency Index in January 2025.

MarketAxess also provides trading in 29 other currency bond markets.

The Reserve Bank of India has been in talks with various electronic trading platforms since the JPMorgan inclusion announcement in September 2023.

Foreign investors have been large sellers of Indian bonds since the start of April.

However, they bought around 1.2 trillion rupees ($13.98 billion) of bonds on a net basis under the Fully Accessible Route (FAR) from July to March, when the weighatage of Indian bonds increased to 10% in the JPMorgan index.

Most bonds under FAR are part of global indexes.

($1 = 85.8180 Indian rupees)