Nepse Spokesperson Shambhu Pant said they thought of opening more workstations based on requests from stockbrokers. “Citing the growing number of transactions from locations outside the valley, a number of stockbrokers have shown interest in expanding their operations outside the valley,” Pant said. According to him, they have asked that they be allowed to do business in 40-45 places outside the valley.

Earlier, Nepse had opened 11 workstations outside the valley. However, a number of them were closed as there wasn’t adequate business to justify their running costs. Currently, it provides services from eight workstations-three in Pokhara, two in Biratnagar and one each in Dharan, Birgunj and Narayanghat.

According to Nepse, these locations conducted share transactions worth Rs 2.57 billion in the first nine months of the fiscal year. They accounted for 5.22 percent of Nepse’s nationwide turnover of Rs 49.19 billion during the period. Their transactions made up 1 percent of Nepse’s total business about a decade ago, said officials of the stock exchange.

Pant said they had started work to study the feasibility of operating more workstations. According to him, Nepse is examining the viability of providing multiple login facilities to the brokers. “If found necessary, we have planned to upgrade the existing software to ease access from outside the valley.”

Nabaraj Pokharel, managing director of Opal Securities, said stockbrokers would operate the workstations only after CDS and Clearing Limited fully implemented its automated clearing system for share transactions. CDS and Clearing Limited is likely to go into a completely automated system after October. It has asked listed companies to dematerialise their shares by mid-July to make the shift possible.

Meanwhile, Nepse has started work to permit share trading online. It has been considering expressions of interest submitted by software developers for the purpose. Anjan Raj Paudel of Thrive Brokerage House said the workstations would be useful even after the introduction of online trading. “As some investors might not conduct online trading by themselves, the workstations will help them to do so.”