``We are awaiting confirmation from Sebi on the uniform settlement front. We hope to go on-line by the end of February,'' said the managing director, ISE, Joseph Massey.

The commencement of operations of the Inter-connected Stock Exchange (ISE) has been stalled as Sebi wants uniform settlement among all the participating member exchanges of ISE. ``The issue is that if there is no uniform settlement in other exchanges then why should ISE have a uniform settlement. And, if this be the case, then the participating members of ISE would be at a disadvantage as they would be losing out an important business segment. Our exchanges would be losingviz-a-viz the other exchanges,'' said Massey.

The ISE members are meeting with Sebi officials next week to finalise the issue of uniform settlement.

Massey is hopeful that by the end of the year, trading in ISE will achieve a turnover of Rs 250 crore. Massey says that the total number of members in the 14 regional stock exchanges (RSE) is 4200 of which 50 per cent are active members, ie 2100 members are active in these regional exchanges. ``In the first phase, we are only targeting 500 members. Looking at the operations a huge lot of other regional members will follow,'' said Massey.

The total daily turnover in all the 14 participating exchanges in the year January 1998 to January 1999 is Rs 250 crore. ``We expect that ISE will start with a turnover of Rs 25-50 crore and will gradually move to achieve a turnover of around Rs 250 crore by the end of the year,'' he said.

There are approximately 4,000 companies listed on all the 14 regional stock exchanges but the ISE is not considering listing ofcompanies at present. ``We are not considering listing of companies in the near future but will consider it probably six months after the exchange is operational,'' said Massey.

ISE plans to, gradually, develop a system of single point listing at a regional exchange and simultaneous trading at all exchanges among ISE. This could be developed at a higher listing fees so that one part of the listing fees could be shared by all exchanges to compensate their notional loss due to single point listing, the companies gain through availability of a larger market with a single point compliance.