Date:20/07/2007 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2007/07/20/stories/2007072050351400.htm

Back NSE may extend financial literacy project

K.R. Srivats

New Delhi, July 19 The NSE, the country’s largest stock exchange by trading volumes, plans to roll out its ‘financial literacy’ project in more States, according to Mr Ravi Narain, Managing Director and CEO.

“We started the financial literacy project in Kerala and later expanded to three more States (Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Gujarat). We are looking at rolling out to more States,” he told Business Line.

Stating that there are few initiatives in the country that are targeted at first-time investors, Mr Narain said that the basic objective of the project was to reach out to such investors and impart basic lessons of finance.

These include effect of compounding, meaning of risk, risk-return trade-offs and time value of money. Besides, the project aims to introduce the investors to capital market.

He added that surveys have showed that a very small fraction of people who save invest in the capital market, adding that most of them continue to rely on bank deposits and post offices for parking their savings.