From Karjat to Wall Street — How Indians Can Now Buy US Stocks
Indian investors can now access US stocks through GIFT City under Indian regulation, while the US market structure still determines trade execution.
For years, many Indians bought US stocks through investing apps. But the journey of that order was longer than most people realised.
When someone clicked “Buy Apple,” the order usually travelled from India to a US broker like ViewTrade or Alpaca. The shares were held in the US, and the trade happened completely within the American market system. Indian regulators mainly monitored the foreign money transfer through RBI’s LRS rule.
Now something important has changed.
The NSE International Exchange (NSE IX) in GIFT City launched Global Access, a framework that adds an Indian regulatory layer through IFSCA. Instead of sending money directly to a US broker, funds first move to a bank in GIFT City, convert into dollars, and then the order goes to the US market.
This may sound like a small operational change, but structurally it matters. Indian investors now get an additional regulatory checkpoint before their order reaches Wall Street.
However, once the trade reaches the US, the system works very differently from India.
In India, every order goes directly to the exchange. The exchange matches buyers and sellers in a transparent order book. Brokers cannot trade against their own customers.
In the US, brokers often route retail orders to large market makers such as Citadel Securities. These firms execute trades internally and earn from the bid-ask spread. This system is known as Payment for Order Flow (PFOF).
BSE Ltd