November 17, 2013

Press Release No. 1

NSE creates awareness in Pune investors through Investor week and Investothon

As part of its Investor Week to engage with market participants, NSE organizes a run for the investor in Pune.

National Stock Exchange (NSE), the leading stock exchange of the country has been rigorously promoting investor awareness to empower market participants with information regarding safe investing, benefits of investing and cost effective products. As a part of this investor awareness initiative, NSE has organized an Investor Awareness Week specifically for Pune from 11^th November to 17^th November.

On Sunday, the 17^th of November, NSE organized the first investor run or Investothon in Pune. The Investothon started from the East Avenue road, in Kalyani Nagar, early on this chilly Sunday morning. The three main races were a five kilometer run called the “Power Run”, a three kilometer run called the Bull Run and a five kilometer Competitive run called the Nifty run.

A large number of Corporates, members, dealers and investors participated in the Investothon. It was flagged off by Chanchala Kodre, Pune Mayor, Dr. Suresh Kumar Mekala, Additional Commissioner of Police (North Region), Mr Tapan Singhal, Managing Director & CEO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Co. Ltd, and Mr. Ravi Varanasi, Chief Business Development, National Stock Exchange. Mr. Hari K and Western regional office head Ms Nisha Subhash were also present on the occasion.

NSE had kicked off the idea of an investor run in 2011 and since then 23 investor runs have been held in many cities, including the metros, and cities like Bhubaneshwar, Kochi, Rajkot and Indore. A large number of people have participated in this movement and today’s run in Pune also saw large crowds.”Pune is emerging as a prominent city for various industries especially IT, auto and manufacturing companies. Pune has the seventh largest metropolitan economy and the sixth highest per capita income in the country. Due to various universities and educational institutes, Pune is also youth centric, making it an important destination for us to spread awareness and promote safe investing” said Mr. Ravi Varanasi, Chief Business Development, NSE.

One more major initiative was announced, to make it more convenient for Pune investors to file their complaints. A dedicated Investor Service Centre (ISC) was inaugurated at Pune, on the 16^thof November, to offer the service of complaint resolution, where investors can register their complaints, instead of routing their grievances to the Mumbai regional office. This centre will also be in a position to handle arbitration cases. This will help in more speedy resolution of investor complaints for the citizens of Pune. Currently there are ISC centers in eight cities, this is the 9^th ISC in the country and NSE plans to open six more before the end of June 2014.

During the investor week, senior Exchange officials have conducted intensive engagement programmes with leading Corporates, the Pune police, colleges, the Institute of Chartered Accountants and member brokers. This is being done to empower market participants within formation and perspective on their rights and obligations in the market, the importance of investing according to an investor’s risk appetite and to spread awareness on products like exchange traded funds.

In these programmes, NSE created awareness on various products including Nifty Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), in which an investor can buy one unit in just a little over Rs. 600(depending on the current value of the index). These funds can be traded just like stocks and their NAV is available real time. NSE officials also educated college students on topics like inflation, risk, investment versus savings, securities market and the different asset classes in the exchange market.