New Delhi, Aug 27 (KNN) The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently asked the banks to make new retail currency trading platform, which went live earlier this month, popular amongst micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and retailers.

The Clearing Corporation of India Ltd (CCIL) platform enables thousands of small businesses to trade at market prices.

The Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) BP Kanungo highlighted the issue of transparent and fair pricing of foreign exchange transactions and said the problem of getting fair prices was especially acute for MSMEs and small businesses who were not allowed to access the FX trading platforms of individual banks.

Kanungo said this recently at the Forex Association of India Conference held in Singapore on August 10, 2019.

“I will also take this opportunity to highlight two other important issues. First, the issue of transparent and fair pricing of foreign exchange transactions which has been brought to our notice by various category of users,” he said.

The problem of getting fair prices was especially acute for MSMEs and small businesses who were not allowed to access the FX trading platforms of individual banks.

In order to address this issue, RBI decided to develop, through CCIL, a web-based platform wherein such participants could place their purchase/sale orders directly. The platform, is accessible to users from early August 2019 through an internet-based application, allows bid/offers from retail clients and Authorised Dealer banks to be matched anonymously and automatically, thereby allowing complete transparency to the users about the levels of their trades. Banks will have to declare and recover their processing charges separately leading to competition amongst banks for customer business, said Kanungo.

He urged the banks to make the platform popular among retail and small business houses/MSMEs.

CCIL’s retail foreign exchange electronic trading platform comes after years of complaints that the banks charge a hefty fee for foreign exchange transactions crimping the margins of traders as the quantity in most cases small and that the market is not accessible to a large section of businesses. (KNN Bureau)