The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday

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signed a letter of intent (LoI) to evaluate joint stra­tegic business opportunities, including listing of options contracts on Nifty indices on the London excha­nge and vice-versa.

As part of the agreement, both the exchanges also declared their intent to explore the feasibility of an agreement whereby FTSE group may license the FTSE100 index to the NSE, whereby the NSE may license the Nifty-50 to LSEG for the purpose of issuing and trading options and other index contracts.

The LoI is for options contracts on Nifty index as US-based Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) group has exclusive rights for the Nifty-50 futures contacts within the Americas and Europe, an NSE official clarified.

The agreement comes a year after FTSE Group signed a similar agreement with MCX-SX exchange. FTSE Group is a 50:50 joint venture between LSE and Financial Times.

Ibukun Adebayo, head of primary markets, India and international business development at LSE, said the agreement with MCX was signed by FTSE Group, and hence he wouldn’t be able to comment. However, he said the agreement signed by FTSE Group with MCX-SX had progressed while the letter of intent signed by the LSE with the NSE was at the moment “exploratory”.

The LoI was signed by Xavier Rolet, chief executive of LSEG and Chitra Ramakrishnan, joint managing director of the NSE, in the presence of George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer, who is leading a high-profile Briti­sh business delegation in Mumbai.

Ramakrishnan said both the exchanges would evaluate joint strategies to access each other’s markets, besides benefiting from the LSE’s experience in the new area of small and medium enterprise (SME) sector. All leading stock exchanges are keen to launch a trading platform for SME sector in India, and NSE hopes to benefit from the LSE’s alternative investment market (AIM), which is seen as a platform for the SME sector.

Meanwhile, Osborne said, “We believe what is good for India is good for the UK and what is good for the UK is good for India.”