KARACHI, Nov 18: About two dozen stock brokerage houses participated in the special session held on Saturday at the Karachi Stock Exchange for conversion of in-house badla to regulated Continuous Funding System (CFS). The amount nonetheless was just about a couple of billion rupees, it was learnt.

KSE Managing Director M.A. Lodhi observed late in the evening that the numbers were still being worked out by the bourse’s IT department. He said that the process of conversion would naturally be slow, but as inhibitions dispel, the number of brokerages and the amount would both rise in the subsequent special sessions.

Besides, he pointed out that the amount of the regulated CFS market had increased from Rs24.5 billion on Nov 6, when the SECP issued directives for conversion, to Rs32 billion by the close of trade on Friday. That, he thought represented conversion of in-house to CFS within brokerage houses.

He was positive that the entire grey market would be converted to the regulated system by the target date of Nov 30, after which netting would not be permitted.

A press release issued by the KSE stated that the management of the KSE was “pleased to announce that it successfully arranged today a special session for conversion of in-house badla to regular Continuous Funding System (CFS)”.