Updates with comments from MarketAxess in paragraphs 3,5,7 and 8

By Dharamraj Dhutia

MUMBAI, June 17 (Reuters) - MarketAxess Holdings said on Tuesday it has launched electronic trading services for Indian government bonds, making it the first platform to give foreign investors direct access to the market.

The platform will be interlinked with the Clearing Corporation of India's (CCIL) trading system NDS-Order Matching platform, allowing foreign investors to bid and offer securities directly along with local investors, the U.S.-based firm said.

"We expect investors will start to use this platform soon. It will provide direct access to foreign investors and the post-trading tasks will be much more enhanced and efficient," Riad Chowdhury, head of Asia-Pacific at MarketAxess told Reuters.

The CCIL did not reply to a Reuters email for comment.

"The platform will ease pre-trade eligibility criteria for foreign investors and will speed up the post-trade process and regulatory requirements," Chowdhury said.

MarketAxess also provides trading in 29 other emerging market bond markets, and has about 1400 clients using its platform.

Chowdhury said that in his experience, electronic trading platforms help boost volumes, and this could be replicated for Indian bonds.

"Some emerging markets do benefit from enhancement of trading abilities as clients are incentiveised to trade more because of the liquidity available. I do think clients who are seeking liquidity could enhance volume to an extent."

Foreign investors are increasingly trading Indian government bonds since they became a part of JPMorgan's emerging market debt index in June 2024 and Bloomberg's Emerging Market Local Currency Index in January 2025.

They have been large sellers of Indian bonds since April, but bought debt worth 1.2 trillion rupees ($13.98 billion) on a net basis under the Fully Accessible Route $(FAR.AU)$ from July to March, when the weighatage of Indian bonds increased to 10% in the JPMorgan index.

Most bonds under FAR are part of global indexes.

($1 = 85.8180 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Dharamraj Dhutia; Editing by Sonia Cheema)

((Dharamraj.Dhutia@thomsonreuters.com;))