NSE makes money when people trade. Yet, as a market infrastructure institution and a first-level regulator, it also has a responsibility to ensure that markets remain orderly, transparent and fair, even when the evolution of trading activity may affect the exchange's own revenue. Nowhere is this duality more evident than in equity derivatives, where the rapid expansion of options has made the segment a major source of NSE's earnings while also bringing it under closer regulatory scrutiny.
The broader economics of the institution remain striking. NSE generated Rs16,601 crore in revenue from operations in FY26 and Rs10,302 crore in profit after tax, with operating EBITDA of Rs11,098 crore and a margin of 67 per cent. In the quarter ended 30 June 2026, revenue from operations rose 13 per cent year on year to Rs4,560 crore, while profit increased 7 per cent to Rs3,120 crore.
“Behind those numbers lies a transformation that extends far beyond trading. What began in the 1990s as an effort to modernise India's stock market has evolved into a financial infrastructure network encompassing trading, clearing and settlement, listings, indices, market data, connectivity, technology and international markets," says Ashishkumar Chauhan, MD and CEO, NSE.
A close view of market infrastructure
An IIT Bombay graduate with a postgraduate diploma from IIM Calcutta, Chauhan has previously headed BSE and held senior roles at Reliance Industries, NSE and IDBI Bank. His career has given him a view of India's market infrastructure from several perspectives, including NSE's early technology-driven transformation and the evolution of the country's broader capital-market architecture.
That transformation began with a very different ambition. When NSE started operations in 1994, India's stock market was still dominated by an older, broker-driven structure in which trading was concentrated on physical trading floors and in geographical centres. NSE's decision to build a nationwide, screen-based electronic market changed the economics of trading by making access faster, more transparent and less dependent on where an investor or broker was located.
The significance of that change went beyond technology. “By bringing investors and trading members onto a common electronic platform, NSE began building the most powerful asset an exchange can possess: liquidity,” says Viral Mody, Executive Director, Vertical 1, NSE.
More orders made it easier to execute trades; easier execution made the platform more attractive to investors, brokers and institutions; and the resulting increase in participation brought still more orders. Companies seeking to raise capital had an incentive to list where the investor base was deepest, while brokers had an incentive to build their systems around the venue with the largest volumes. Over time, these mutually reinforcing relationships created a network effect that became one of the most formidable barriers to entry in the exchange business.
Three decades later, the result is difficult to challenge. NSE has remained India's largest exchange by cash-equity and equity-derivatives turnover from FY2001 through FY26 and the first quarter of FY27. Its reach extended to 13.1 crore unique registered investors and 26 crore registered investor accounts, with investors from more than 99 per cent of India's postal codes. NSE's total Core SGF corpus stood at about Rs13,079 crore as of March 2026.
Chauhan's description of NSE as a financial infrastructure network is important because it explains why the exchange cannot be viewed simply through its transaction-charge income. Once liquidity becomes entrenched, the trading platform can support a much wider set of businesses around it.
A powerful network effect
For NSE, that has created a powerful network effect around trading and, more importantly, a foundation on which businesses far beyond the transaction itself can be built. The first layer is clearing and settlement. Its role is far more consequential than simply processing transactions: the clearing corporation stands between buyers and sellers, manages counterparty risk and guarantees settlement, making it a critical part of the market's plumbing.
The same network effect is increasingly visible in NSE's index franchise. The Nifty brand has become part of India's investment architecture rather than merely a number displayed on trading screens. NSE had more than 400 indices as of June 2026, creating an economic asset quite different from transaction revenue. An index can be licensed across funds, ETFs, derivatives and other investment products without requiring the underlying investor to execute a new trade each time. The breadth of that franchise helps explain Chauhan's emphasis on a financial infrastructure network rather than an exchange viewed purely as a trading venue.
The value increasingly lies in the connections between trading, indices, clearing, listings, data and technology. Beyond the trade lies a technology-intensive business built around information and access. Every transaction generates information, and that information has value for brokers, institutional investors, asset managers, researchers, algorithmic developers, software companies and the media. NSE's data businesses provide real-time and historical market information, analytics, connectivity and terminals, while its datacentre operations serve members requiring low-latency access.
These businesses remain much smaller than transaction charges, but that is precisely why they matter strategically. NSE can monetise the market even when an investor is not placing another order: through the information generated by trading, the benchmark created from prices, the infrastructure used to execute transactions and the companies that use the platform to raise capital.
Listings add another layer. For companies raising capital, being listed on the country's dominant exchange means access to a deep pool of investors and post-listing liquidity. NSE recorded 219 IPO listings in FY26, placing it among the world's top two exchange groups by number of IPO listings. The listing advantage feeds back into the network. Companies want investors, investors want liquidity, and liquidity attracts companies. The relationship continues after an IPO because issuers pay annual listing fees and their securities generate trading and data activity.
Dramatic expansion of investor base
Chauhan's tenure has also coincided with a dramatic expansion in the investor base. Unique registered investors on NSE increased from 3.086 crore in March 2020 to 13.1 crore. The growth reflects a wider structural change in Indian household finance, with demat accounts multiplying and mutual funds and systematic investment plans becoming increasingly important channels for household savings.
Sriram Krishnan, NSE's Chief Business Development Officer, sees the expansion in participation in similar terms. As the exchange crossed 25 crore investor accounts in early 2026, he says the growth reflected rising household confidence and wider acceptance of equities as a long-term investment avenue, while stressing the importance of investor awareness, disciplined investing and robust safeguards as participation expands.
The corporate side of that transition is equally important. NSE's role is no longer confined to equities. India continues to rely heavily on bank financing, while the corporate bond market remains relatively shallow. A deeper bond market would give the exchange another avenue to deploy the investor base, technology and distribution infrastructure it has already built. Chauhan has repeatedly positioned capital markets as an important part of India's broader economic development. The logic is straightforward: as more households enter financial markets and more companies seek market-based finance, the infrastructure connecting investors and issuers becomes more valuable.
Moving into other asset classes
The same logic lies behind NSE's move into other asset classes. It launched electricity futures in July 2025 and electronic gold receipts in May 2026, followed by Indian natural gas futures linked to the IGX Dahej hub, while also moving towards establishing a National Coal Exchange. The markets are different from equities, but the underlying strategy is similar: standardise transactions, provide transparent price discovery, manage risk and create organised electronic marketplaces around economic activity that has traditionally been more fragmented.
The natural gas contract illustrates that ambition. It is the first domestic hub-referenced, exchange-traded natural gas contract in India. The objective is not necessarily to turn every new market into another options-sized revenue engine, but to leverage the technology, clearing, risk-management and distribution infrastructure already built by NSE and extend it into a larger share of India's economic activity.
GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City) represents the international extension of the same strategy. NSE International Exchange was established in 2016 in GIFT City and operates for more than 21 hours a day, allowing market participants to trade India-linked products across international time zones. The business has been adding products aimed at international investors. In FY26, NSE IX launched Nifty 50 zero-days-to-expiry options and GIFT Nifty India FPI 150 derivatives, while NSE IX Global Access was established to facilitate global investing.
For NSE, GIFT City offers a route to extend its domestic franchise into an international financial centre; for India, the larger ambition is to attract financial activity that currently takes place in established centres such as Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong. The opportunity comes with a different competitive environment. International financial markets bring different regulatory frameworks, tax structures, competitive dynamics and investor requirements, and NSE's offer document acknowledges the possibility that offshore activity may not migrate to GIFT City as expected.
That makes the financial architecture of the business an important part of the IPO story. Ian Desouza, CFO of NSE, puts the institution's broader role succinctly: "NSE is much more than a marketplace; it is the lifeblood of India's financial ecosystem. We bridge the dreams of businesses with the capital needed to realise them, empowering investors to shape India's growth story."
That formulation is particularly relevant to the numbers. NSE's transaction engine remains dominant, but the financial model increasingly includes connectivity, data, indices, listings and other services built around the underlying market infrastructure. The question for investors is not whether transaction revenue will remain important, but whether the wider ecosystem can progressively become a larger contributor to the earnings base.
The opportunity and the regulatory question therefore sit unusually close together. India's options market still has room to deepen, particularly if institutional participation increases and market structures evolve. At the same time, further regulatory intervention remains a possibility.
A commercial enterprise
The broader governance issue is even more fundamental. NSE occupies a category of its own: it is a commercial enterprise, but one whose core business is inseparable from the functioning and integrity of the market itself. While the exchange earns revenue from trading and the ecosystem built around it, it also carries first-level regulatory responsibilities encompassing surveillance, compliance, orderly markets and investor protection. Its governance arrangements seek to separate commercial interests from regulatory functions.
Sanjay Shorey, Executive Director, Vertical 2, heads the part of the organisation responsible for regulatory, compliance, risk-management and investor-grievance functions. His background in the Indian Corporate Law Service, corporate affairs, legal prosecution and regulatory compliance is particularly relevant to this side of NSE's structure. The separation between commercial and regulatory responsibilities becomes increasingly important as the exchange itself becomes a public company.
Shareholders will naturally want growth, but an exchange cannot pursue growth by treating market activity simply as a volume target. Its long-term value depends on investor confidence, market integrity and regulatory credibility. The institution therefore has to balance a vibrant market against the risks associated with excessive speculation, even when some of that activity generates revenue for the exchange.
What next? It is in this context that NSE is approaching the public markets. The IPO has been fixed at a price band of Rs1,700 to Rs1,785 a share and is scheduled to open on 17 September and close on 21 September 2026.
The offer is for the sale of up to 126,436,650 existing equity shares, with no fresh issue of capital. NSE has 2.475 billion equity shares outstanding. The shares being sold are held by existing shareholders including State Bank of India, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Aranda Investments, MS Strategic, New India Assurance and other institutional shareholders.
NSE is not raising money through the IPO to construct a new exchange, build data centres or finance an expansion programme. The offer, instead, allows public-market investors to put a value on an infrastructure franchise that has already been built.
More than a marketplace
The CFO's description of NSE as more than a marketplace is therefore central to the public-market proposition. The exchange is being valued not merely on the transaction fees generated today but on the financial infrastructure, investor base, technology, data, indices, listings and new markets that may support earnings over time.
The valuation asks investors to look beyond the current earnings mix. If NSE were valued solely as a transaction business, the concentration in derivatives and the possibility of regulatory intervention would deserve considerable weight. But if it is valued as a financial infrastructure platform with dominant liquidity, an entrenched clearing franchise, a powerful index business, growing data and technology revenues, an international opportunity in GIFT City, and exposure to the continuing financialisation of India, the equation becomes very different.
The absence of a fresh issue is also significant. Existing shareholders are monetising part of their holdings, while NSE itself does not receive primary capital from the transaction. The public offering is therefore principally about ownership, price discovery and bringing a strategically important market institution into the listed-company universe.
India's financial markets are still evolving. The number of investors is rising, mutual funds and passive products are becoming increasingly important, companies are raising larger amounts of capital through public markets, the bond market has considerable room to deepen, and organised exchanges are beginning to penetrate areas such as electricity, gold, gas and coal. NSE is already at the centre of many of these developments. India's financialisation gives it a remarkable runway. Household savings are moving gradually towards financial assets; millions of new investors are entering the capital markets; mutual funds and SIPs are becoming mainstream; companies are increasingly accessing the equity markets; institutional participation is expanding; and the need for deeper debt and commodity markets is becoming more apparent.
NSE stands to benefit from all of these trends, whether the investor ultimately buys an individual stock, an ETF, a derivative, a bond or a product linked to an index. Its opportunity is to become the infrastructure connecting those activities.
The prospect of NSE becoming a listed company therefore carries a significance that extends well beyond another market debut. It could represent a remarkable full-circle moment for Chauhan: from helping build the institution at its inception to potentially steering it to the public markets more than three decades later.
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The man behind NSE's final push
With the National Stock Exchange finally poised to enter the public markets, Srinivas Injeti finds himself at the centre of the last, and perhaps most consequential, stretch of a decade-long saga of regulatory battles, litigation and institutional repair.
For almost a decade, NSE waited for this moment. Now, India's largest exchange by trading volumes is finally ready to place itself under the public-market microscope.
The numbers are eye-catching. The backstory is even more compelling. NSE's IPO journey began in 2016, when the exchange sought regulatory approval to go public and subsequently filed its draft papers. The proposed listing, however, became entangled in the fallout from the co-location controversy and a series of regulatory proceedings. What followed were years of scrutiny and litigation, leaving one of India's most important pieces of financial infrastructure unable to complete its transition to a listed company.
Into this complicated final phase stepped Srinivas Injeti. The retired 1983-batch IAS officer became chairman of NSE's governing board in September 2025. His career had already taken him through some of India's most important regulatory institutions. He served as Union Corporate Affairs Secretary from 2017 to 2020 and subsequently became the founding Chairperson of the International Financial Services Centres Authority. That background is significant because NSE's final journey to the market has been as much about regulation and governance as about the mechanics of an IPO.
When Injeti took over, the exchange still had to navigate the regulatory overhang arising from the co-location and dark-fibre matters. A major step came on 30 January 2026, when SEBI granted NSE its no-objection certificate to proceed with its IPO. The board subsequently approved an offer for sale by existing shareholders and reconstituted its IPO committee.
Importantly, the IPO committee is not Injeti's personal vehicle. It is chaired by Tablesh Pandey and includes Injeti, public-interest directors Mamata Biswal, Abhilasha Kumari and G Sivakumar, and NSE Managing Director and CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan. That distinction matters. The story is not that one bureaucrat single-handedly delivered NSE's IPO. Rather, Injeti arrived at the exchange at a critical point in a much larger institutional process.
The next major hurdle was the legacy regulatory litigation. In March 2026, NSE revised its settlement proposal to SEBI to Rs 1,491.21 crore, covering the co-location and dark-fibre matters. SEBI gave in-principle approval to the settlement on 30 July. NSE had already deposited Rs776.47 crore and subsequently paid a further Rs714.74 crore, completing the Rs1,491.21-crore settlement.
The settlement was another major step in clearing the regulatory overhang that had shadowed NSE's proposed listing. A further legal milestone followed on 3 September, when the Supreme Court disposed of SEBI's appeals challenging the Securities Appellate Tribunal's orders in the co-location and dark-fibre matters following the settlement between SEBI and NSE. Importantly, the court made it clear that the separate proceedings involving former NSE Managing Director and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna and others would continue independently. That qualification is important. NSE may have cleared a major institutional hurdle, but the entire legacy of the co-location episode has not simply disappeared.
For Injeti, meanwhile, his chairmanship has coincided with this final phase of regulatory and governance consolidation. His career has been built around precisely the intersection that NSE now has to navigate: regulation, institutional architecture, corporate governance and public confidence. At the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, he dealt with the framework governing companies and corporate institutions. At IFSCA, he helped establish a new financial regulator. At NSE, he inherited an institution that did not need to be built; it needed to demonstrate that it was ready for the scrutiny that comes with becoming a public company.
That is a very different challenge from simply preparing an offer document. The IPO remains a collective institutional achievement involving NSE's management and board, SEBI, advisers, shareholders and other stakeholders.
But the timing of Injeti's chairmanship places him at a pivotal point in the exchange's long journey from a stalled 2016 listing plan to a public offering that is now scheduled to reach the market.
And the transformation is bigger than an IPO.