The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) on October 16, 2026, issued Guidelines for Algorithmic Trading on the Stock Exchanges.
The following has been stated: -
•The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) has issued guidelines to regulate algorithmic trading on stock exchanges in International Financial Services Centres (IFSCs), with the objective of strengthening market integrity, transparency, liquidity and operational resilience.
•Registered broker-dealers and onboarded Registered Trading Participants (RTPs) must obtain prior express approval from the stock exchange before deploying, offering or facilitating algorithmic trading.
•Stock exchanges must establish procedures for evaluating, approving, monitoring, suspending and withdrawing approval of trading algorithms and ensure adequate system capacity, scalability and fair response times.
•Exchanges must also synchronize system clocks with atomic clocks, maintaining precision of at least one microsecond and accuracy of ±1 millisecond.
•The framework seeks to mitigate systemic and operational risks while ensuring fair and orderly market participation.
The detailed circular is given in the document below.
[Circular No.: IFSCA/CMD-DMIIT/ALGO/2026-27/01]
