The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), Asia’s oldest stock exchange, has evolved from informal stock trading under a banyan tree to a technology-driven marketplace accessible through smartphones.
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sundararaman Ramamurthy told a delegation of international journalists visiting the exchange.
Addressing the delegation during a familiarisation tour of BSE’s historic trading hall, Ramamurthy said the exchange, now 151 years old, emerged from a group of traders who conducted stock transactions beneath a banyan tree in Mumbai.
He said India has a documented stock trading history spanning more than 200 years, with early evidence found in newspaper advertisements placed by buyers and sellers seeking to trade securities.
According to Ramamurthy, the informal trading association later became the Native Share and Stock Brokers Association before developing into the modern stock exchange.
He noted that the hall where the journalists were received once housed BSE’s iconic trading ring, where brokers gathered to execute trades through verbal bids and hand signals before the advent of electronic trading.
“Today there is no trading ring,” he said, explaining that trading moved from the exchange floor to brokerage offices, then to investors’ computers and now to smartphones.
Ramamurthy said India’s investor base has expanded significantly, with about 260 million unique investor accounts participating in the securities market. However, he said the figure remains relatively small compared with India’s population of more than 1.3 billion people.
“There is a long way to go for our markets in terms of growth,” he said.
He added that the exchange has transformed beyond being merely a trading venue.
“What it has resulted in is this place is no longer a simple stock exchange. It is a temple of trust,” he said, emphasising the importance of investor confidence, regulation and transparent market systems.
Ramamurthy said stock exchanges play a critical role in national development by converting household savings into productive capital that supports economic growth.