Mumbai: India's newest stock exchange, the Multi Commodity Exchange-Stock Exchange (MCX-SX), averaged a daily turnover of Rs.3.49 billion during the first month of operations.

In a statement, MCX-SX said it averaged daily volume of 71,242 contracts during the month in the only segment where it has started operations - the currency futures derivatives segment.

MCX-SX started operations Oct 6.

While banks accounted for more than 25 percent of the total volume of the exchange, it now has 222 trading members in its system and 575 user identities spread across 24 cities in the country.

The release said some 133 active members participated in the trading during the month. MCX-SX received 875 applications including 17 from the private sector, public sector and foreign banks at the time of the launch.

Out of the total figure, 362 members are registered with the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and the remaining are under various processes of approvals, the release said.

Quoting an MCX-SX spokesperson, the statement said: "The progress on MCX-SX is in line with our expectations and we are confident of extending benefits of this platform across various categories of actual users who are the major stakeholders participating on our exchange."

"We are guided by the philosophy of developing markets via information, education and research. This will help market participants including banks, forex dealers, corporate houses, small and medium enterprises, exporters and importers to hedge their currency risks on the MCX-SX platform."

Since the launch, MCX-SX has taken a thought leadership position by launching the first handbook on currency futures, and also becoming the first exchange to provide currency future rate updates via short messaging service, the statement said.

In the last 40 days, MCX-SX has conducted more than 25 workshops across India on its own or jointly with Foreign Exchange Dealers Association of India (FEDAI) and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), the statement said.

Bankers, foreign exchange dealers, corporates, brokers, and small and medium enterprises participated in these workshops.

Currently, MCX-SX offers dollar-rupee contracts. The size of each contract is $1,000 and quoted and settled in Indian rupees. The settlement price is the Reserve Bank of India's reference rate.