The board of National Stock Exchange (NSE) has approved a 1 per cent cut in charges for transactions in the cash equities and equity derivatives segment effective April 1, 2024.

The move will reportedly have an annual impact of Rs 130 crore on its revenues. Currently, the transaction charge in the cash segment stands at 0.00325 per cent (of the transaction value), whereas it is 0.0019 per cent for derivatives. Early last year, the bourse had proposed to hike the transaction charges by 6 per cent. However, this was rolled back in March that year.

NSE’s decision comes days after it announced that investor base at the exchange crossed the 9 crore mark in February. According to the bourse, such registrations have seen an accelerating trend over the last few years. While the increase from 6 to 7 crore took about nine months, the next crore investors came in eight months, and the rise from 8 to 9 crore took only five months.

It added that the investor base has seen a jump in the last five years, facilitated by rapid growth in digitisation, rising investor awareness, financial inclusion, and strong market performance.

So far in this fiscal year, of the new investors that have entered the market since October 2023, nearly 42 per cent hailed from North India, followed by West India (28 per cent), South India (17 per cent) and East India (13 per cent). Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra contributed the largest number of new investors during this period, together accounting for more than a quarter of all new additions, NSE had said.

Currently, the highest number of such investors are from Maharashtra with 1.6 crore, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 97 lakh investors and Gujarat with 81 lakh.