There are two good reasons why a payment crisis is unlikely to occur here. For one, the outstanding position at the end of last settlement was within manageable limits and the net pay-in liability at the exchange is around Rs 50 crore.

The exchange is comfortably placed in terms of margin deposits, which are estimated to be around Rs 350 crore, out of which Rs 80 crore is in cash, the rest being in fixed deposits and bank guarantees furnished by members, exchange sources pointed out.

In addition, the trade guarantee fund of the exchange has a comfortable corpus of Rs 70 crore which fortunately is yet to be touched since it was set up two years back.

The high margins required to be paid by members on outstanding positions and the mark-to-market margins make the official system virtually fool-proof. Problems, if any, could have cropped in private deals had the market remained depressed for another couple of sessions.

This is because a falling market induces financiers to offload shares held in custody to safeguard their capital advanced to bulls. This only serves to accelerate the fall in prices. In any case, the payments position will be known officially only after the pay-in scheduled for tomorrow is completed.