NSEL to empanel 10K jewellers next year

The seemingly monotonous process of investing in precious metals is set to get interesting. Come January and the Financial Technologies (FTIL) and National Co-operative Marketing Federation of India Ltd (NAFED) promoted electronic spot market, National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) will offer investors an option to exit in style - by converting their investments in jewellery of their choice.

The electronic spot exchange will enroll as many as 10,000 jewellers from different parts of the country, from where the investors of NSEL's e-gold or e-silver products will get an option to purchase jewellery worth market value of their investments by paying the making charges for their chosen jewellery.

What's more, the selection of jewellers will be made on the basis of certain criteria, which would include strict compliance of code of conduct including hallmarking and BIS certification, among others. "This scheme will enable investors to buy gold from NSEL platform and buy jewellery worth of their investment by paying additional making charges. We will enroll the jewelers who will be interested to partner with us. The enrolment will start from January next and by the end of next year we aim to have around 10,000 empaneled jewelers across country," said Anjani Sinha, managing director and CEO, National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL).

Similar to equities trading on stock exchanges, NSEL, under its e-Series, offers investors a platform to trade and invest in commodities by opening a trading account and a de-mat account with the members of the exchange. From a daily turnover of Rs 300 crore, the exchange aims to achieve Rs 500 crore by March 2011. E-silver holds the largest share in the exchange's daily turnover of Rs 150 crore, while e-gold and e-copper have daily turnover of Rs 60-70 crore and Rs 50-60 crore, respectively. "By March 2011, we will have 7-8 commodities under the e-Series, of which e-nickel will be launched in February, while others including guar seed will be launched in due course of time," he said. Sinha further mentioned that there was a growing demand for a cash segment in commodities from retail investors. "We aim to have about 625 members by end of January. The exchange has about 37,000 accounts and we see business growing to Rs 5,000 crore per day over next couple of years," Sinha added.

NSEL is an electronic spot market promoted by . So far the exchange has launched three products under its e-Series, which include e-gold, e-silver and e-copper. The exchange plans to have 20 such products including major non-ferrous metals and some of the agro commodities by December 2011.