BSE's Ashishkumar Chauhan may succeed Vikram Limaye as next MD & CEO of National Stock Exchange

Ashishkumar Chauhan is likely to succeed Vikram Limaye, an outgoing managing director and chief executive officer of the National Stock Exchange, with capital markets regulator Sebi clearing his appointment, sources said on Sunday.

Chauhan, who is currently the MD and CEO of BSE, will be appointed for a period of five years, they added.

He will be taking over the helm of NSE from Vikram Limaye, whose five-year term ended on Saturday. Limaye did not seek another term at the National Stock Exchange (NSE) despite being eligible.

Chauhan, who is one of the founders of NSE, faces the uphill battle of guiding the exchange at a time when it is facing regulatory probes pertaining to governance lapses as well as a scam related to its co-location facility.

The co-location case resulted in the ouster and later arrest of its former MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna.

Chauhan, a technocrat from IIT and IIM, is considered the father of modern financial derivatives in India due to his work in the area during 1993-2000.

He is also the creator of the Nifty index and was in charge of creating the first screen-based trading. He started his career as a banker with IDBI.

At BSE since 2009, Chauhan has helped it become the world's fastest exchange with 6 microseconds response time, revived its revenues, introduced mobile stock trading to India, diversified into new areas including currency, commodities and equity derivatives, SMEs, start-ups, mutual fund and insurance distribution, spot markets and power trading.

In addition, Chauhan has the experience of successfully handling the IPO of BSE. This was one of the attributes NSE was looking for in its next chief.

The NSE has been planning to come out with its initial share sale since long. However, its plan to go public got derailed after the bourse got embroiled in the co-location controversy, where certain brokers were allegedly given unfair access to the exchange's data feeds over other members.

On March 4, NSE invited applications from candidates for the role of MD and CEO. The applications were invited from candidates having IPO (initial public offering) experience.