The next terminals are expected to come up at Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. NRIs here will have access to live trades and real-time quotes, not to speak of quick deliveries and payments. Sixty-eight NSE members are expected to set up 81 terminals in 4 cities in the UAE, while 47 members are eyeing 16 cities in the USA and 29 members are doing their homework in the UK. Indonesia, Kuwait, Singapore, Hong Kong and Quatar will also figure amongst these targetted 47 cities.

The tie-up will facilitate setting up an NSE terminal to kickstart online trading from Dubai on the NationalStock Exchange. Though regulations in the UAE are not as stringent like elsewhere, going in for a joint venture was a pre-condition for setting up a terminal there.

The move will mark the beginning of globalisation of Indian stock exchanges. The wish list drawn up by NSE members see 224 of them setting up around 261 terminals in 47 strategically-located cities across the world.

However, the JV, which was expected to kick off as early as July 15, is likely to be delayed, since it could take another month or two for the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) permission to come through. DoT is currently scrutinising the security aspects of the JV.

The tie-up is not in the nature of an equity tie-up, but where both partners will share the cost of technology (such projects have an expected conservative break-even period of about 2 1/2 years), which will be around Rs 10 lakh initially, with an additional Rs 40 lakh on a recurring basis. The latter will go towards DoT licensing, unless the fees are reduced--as is being expected.

Market participants point out that in case the Indian stockmarkets are good, such projects could notch up a turnover of over Rs 200 crore in the very first year of operations.

Incidentally, the fact that Dubai is a tax haven also has much to do with it being a natural first choice while going global. Stiff competition in the Indian stockmarkets, which has pegged brokerage to abysmal levels, has made it imperative for broking houses to seek fresh pastures.

The existence of a sizeable Indian population interested in investing in Indian stocks was one reason why Dubai was chosen as the debut point.

The JV also proposes to offer fee-based, value-added services like identifying value stocks, providing sick stock viability reports, tracking unlisted performers etc. for their customers.

While issues are being sorted out with the DoT and the Reserve Bank of India, the JV partners are working out the best possible packages in terms of brokerage. This is because brokerage charges willhave to be higher than in the case of domestic transactions -- perhaps ranging between 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent for each of the partners (depending on the volume of the transaction). This is not surprising, considering that NRI transactions call for much more paperwork -- for example, both RBI approvals and levels of dematerialisation in a client's portfolio have to be checked and documented, RBI permission for NRE account transactions arising out of secondary market trades have to be verified, etc.