Moscow Exchange working on launching rupee trading

MOSCOW. Aug 28 (Interfax) - The Moscow Exchange sees demand from market participants for the launch of rupee trading and is exploring the issue, but a final decision has not been made yet, the director of the exchange's money market department, Sergei Titov said.

"The rupee, unfortunately, is not a freely convertible currency and in order to launch trading outside of India it is necessary to receive permission from the Indian regulator. We are conducting a dialog on this matter, there is no final decision. We see demand from market participants," Titov told reporters.

"There is a similar situation with the [UAE] dirham, settlements with which are fairly complicated. Not many companies in Russia have accounts in dirham. We are also working on this. We have cash-settled futures trading in order to meet investor demand for investment in dirham. There is client activity in it and investor interest," Titov said.

The trading volume for "friendly" currencies on the Moscow Exchange is growing rapidly, he said. The yuan is becoming the "new dollar," and already accounts for about 43% of trading on the spot forex market. Trading volumes are up year-on-year by six times for the Kazakh tenge, 12 times for the Turkish lira and 55 times for the Armenian dram.

The exchange has near-term plans to expand the range of instruments, including "pairs with the Turkish lira and Hong Kong dollar in the regime of clearing over-the-counter transactions with the central counterparty, with Kazakh tenge, with the Turkish lira and Belarusian ruble in the block liquidity exchange service (RFS)," Titov said, adding that they "are usually used by major participants carrying out transactions for large amounts."