Finance ministry asks Sebi to address issues that led to NSE outage

The finance ministry has asked markets regulator Sebi to take necessary measures to address issues that led to the outage at National Stock Exchange recently.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Monday, Minister of State for Finance Anurag Singh Thakur said that on February 24, 2021, the National Stock Exchange of India Limited (NSE) took a decision to halt trading from 11:40 am due to technical issues.

However, the system of interoperability among clearing corporations, which allows market participants to consolidate their clearing and settlement functions at a single clearing corporation, irrespective of the stock exchange on which the trade is executed, continued to remain functional.

The trading at NSE resumed from 03:30 pm and trading hours were extended from 03:30 pm to 05:00 pm for the day in all the three stock exchanges -- NSE, BSE and MSEI -- to enable investors to square off their existing positions.

"The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) has advised SEBI to review the issues leading to the halt in trading in NSE and the corresponding disaster recovery process. DEA has further advised SEBI to take necessary measures to ensure that all the underlying issues leading up to the market disruption are addressed appropriately," the minister said.

Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) had made a net investment of Rs 2,332 crore on February 24, 2021.

NSE is one of the largest derivatives exchanges in the world and accounts for the leading market share (by total turnover) in India - 93.2 per cent in equity cash trading and 99.9 per cent in equity derivatives trading during 2019-20.