The Hindu Business Line : R Trade from Anil Ambani stable bets on online trading

R TRADE, the financial services brand promoted by the Anil Ambani group, has zeroed in on online transactions around which a major part of its business plan is expected to revolve.

The group, which has set up separate companies to offer stock broking, commodity broking and non-banking financial services, has placed big bets on the market's growing penchant for online trading. The idea is to offer at competitive costs, online facilities that will ultimately cover a host of activities.

These will, among other things, embrace online distribution of retail investment and savings products, including insurance and mutual funds.

R Trade Securities, the stock broking arm, has acquired the BSE and NSE tickets, while R Trade Commodities has taken up memberships of the key commodity exchanges.

R Trade Financial Services has received the RBI's approval for commencing business as well. R Trade, according to sources, hopes to start with about 50 or so offices around the country, eight of which will come up in Mumbai.

A recruitment drive - which has so far covered 100 executives - has already seen the appointment of various functional heads.

A few regional heads have also been selected.

"The plan is to have footprints across all regions. We hope to have a 300-strong team later", sources said, adding that on-line services are expected to gain wider acceptance in the days ahead. Clients will be assisted by call centre executives.

R Trade's systems will, therefore, allow clients to buy commodities, invest in mutual funds, buy the RBI bonds, obtain IPO funding - all of it in an online environment.

Insurance, thanks to the group's recently displayed interest in the area, is expected to play a critical role on this front as well.

The reference here is to the acquisition of the AMP Sanmar venture - which will now be called Reliance Life Insurance.

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