MUMBAI: India’s three main stocks exchanges said on Friday they would stop licensing their indexes and securities or providing data to foreign exchanges, saying such agreements had led trading to migrate outside of the country.

Foreign markets now offer dollar-based derivative contracts based on Indian indexes, shares and other securities under licensing agreements with Indian exchanges, allowing overseas investors to gain exposure to Asia’s third-largest economy without having to trade onshore.

Those licensing agreements will now be terminated with immediate effect, subject to notice periods, the National Stock Exchange, BSE Ltd and Metropolitan Stock Exchange said in a joint statement late on Friday.

The most popular of these contracts has long been the SGX Nifty 50 index futures offered by the Singapore Exchange under a licensing agreement with the National Stock Exchange, India’s biggest exchange.

It tracks the NSE’s main index of its top 50 shares, the Nifty 50 index.

The actions would prevent SGX from offering the contract to overseas investors, who would be forced to unwind contracts and buy into domestic derivatives to gain exposure to India, a country that has become an emerging market darling, but has had disputes with foreign funds over taxes and regulations.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2018