Saxo Bank and India’s ICICI Securities have signed a partnership deal which will allow Indian investors to access Saxo’s trading and investment capabilities via a digital platform. This is big news for ICICI’s 4 million Indian clients, as they will now be able to diversify their investments outside India. They will be offered access to new investment opportunities via Saxo’s SaxoTraderGO platform.
ICICI Securities is a subsidiary of India’s leading private sector bank. It is an integrated securities firm, which offers a wide range of services including retail stock broking and private wealth management.
While there is enormous interest in investment diversification within India, historically Indian regulators have made it difficult for citizens to invest or trade offshore. Yet Indians have the capacity to move the gold market with their buying behaviour, and have used offshore conduits like Mauritius holding companies to channel investment capital to the wider world.
With India now a much more affluent and sophisticated market, it was only a matter of time before foreign brokers would seek to enter this market with wider investment offerings. A tie up with one of the major financial services conglomerates which dominate the domestic Indian investment landscape was an obvious play for Saxo.
“India is an incredibly important growth market with a growing number of investment professionals and a very tech-savvy population,” said Kim Fournais, co-founder and CEO of Saxo Bank.
ICICI has been involved in the domestic investment market for almost 20 years. The new partnership will let it offer access to equity, bond and ETF markets across 24 countries. The objective is to offer Indian investors a wider range of choice than previously.
It is difficult to underestimate the sheer size of the Indian wealth market, and its dynamic characteristics. It is a market to watch in terms of the further develop of sophisticated wealth management and trading services for the growing middle class. To date, much of the focus has been on Indian equities, but ventures like Saxo’s will serve to broaden the range of options to physical share trading in foreign markets.
