SBI Capital to enter commodity broking

India's leading investment banker SBI Capital Markets (SBICAP) plans to enter commodity broking and expand aggressively its online equity trading to take on competition from ICICI in the sector.

"We plan to expand into commodity broking where volume could be phenomenal in times to come... But we may have to form another subsidiary as the regulator is different," SBICAP's Managing Director and CEO R Sridharan said.

Recently, its subsidiary SBICAP Securities, along with State Bank of Indore, has launched electronic broking for their customers and as of now they are in talks with other group companies.

When asked about specific commodities for which the company will be launching retail broking, Sridharan said: "We will go wherever there is potential" sounding highly optimistic about future of commodity trading and broking.

Last year, SBICAP established SBICAP Securities as a wholly owned subsidiary to manage their retail and institutional broking, research as well as to handle sales and distribution of investment products.

Talking about SBICAP Securities' foray into electronic broking, Sridharan said: "We are also going to offer electronic broking, we have started e-broking services to Bank of Indore and would extend the services to other SBI Group banks and to SBI even."

Currently, ICICI Bank's subsidiary ICICI Securities is the market leader in online trading platform ICICIDirect.com with around 10 lakh customer.

SBICAP Securities' e-broking service was targeting Internet savvy clients, especially the younger generation who preferred to operate through net banking in the stock markets, Sridharan said.

"We also do broking for futures and options products, both for retail as well as institutional clients," he said.

SBICAP also has other responsibilities as one of the oldest investment bankers in the country that included project advisory and structured finance, raising money for the companies from the primary market, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital funding.

It has been adjudged number one in terms of project advisory and structured finance in Asia Pacific, and globally it is ranked at number nine.

In project advisory power, oil & gas, road, port projects rank high for the company.