E*Trade sounds out Indian market

Gauges the market's depth and the interest in online trading.

E*Trade, the third-largest online broker in the US behind Ameritrade Holding and Charles Schwab, is cocking an eye at the Indian market. Representatives of the financial services portal recently visited Mumbai and held talks with brokerages that have an online presence.

Hemang Raja, managing director of InvestsmartIndia, the brokerage promoted by IL&FS, said, "E*Trade people were here and asked questions about our business strategies, revenue model, the size of the market and so on."

E*Trade representatives are said to have met executives of Indiabulls, InvestsmartIndia, ICICI Direct and SSKI Securities among others.

The talks were exploratory in nature, market sources said, adding that the whole idea was to gauge the market's depth and the interest in online trading in the marketplace.

John Lord, vice-president, E*Trade (Asia-Pacific), said in an e-mail response to Business Standard, "E*Trade is constantly evaluating international market opportunities and India is a part of this. We have no current timeline for investment in the Indian marketplace nor have we aligned ourselves with any financial services group."

E*Trade is a financial services and trading portal and offers a host of products, ranging from investing in equity and bonds, retirement plans, insurance products, educational plans, custodial services, business retirement plans, plans tailor-made for individual investors as well as corporate investors, options, mutual funds, initial public offerings and so on. At the end of 2003, it had 2.8 million brokerage customers.

E*Trade is also the eighth-largest US savings bank and offers checking accounts, credit cards, home mortgages, consumer loans and a network of 15,000 ATMs.

The company has a big presence in online trading in the US, Australia and Europe. In the US, online trading accounts for around 60 per cent of the total trading volume, while in India its is just 5 per cent.