With more interest than ever in the emerging markets of the Middle- and Far East has come the increase of share certificates in those markets being issued on the Bermuda Stock Exchange.

One of the biggest players operating in certificate issuance on the BSX is CLSA Financial Products Limited, an amalgamation of two French banks - Credit Agricole and Credit Lyonnais, who have been buying a number of shares, particularly in the Indian market, on their clients' behalf of late.

The benefits for the clients are that they do not incur the trouble and expense of having to purchase the shares themselves, as James McKirdy, chief operating officer of the BSX explained.

"CLSA have institutional clients and rather than the clients trying to go into the Indian, Korean or Thai markets on their own and trying to buy shares in companies there, what CLSA have done is gone in on their own with an indication of interest from one or several of the clients in a particular company and they have bought an amount of shares which they hold," he said.

"Then, on the back of that, their parent entity gives a guarantee the performance that they have been able to deliver would be the value of the shares as certificates against what they hold and they are dealt with by the Exchange as a derivative."

He said the rise in the take-up of issuance, whether an increase or decrease, is dictated by the CLSA underlying client base.

"This one is a programme that can expand and contract based on underlying client demand," he said.

"The reason they have to notify us of any increase or decrease of their certificates is basically to inform the global markets."

Trading on India's main stock index, the Sensex, was suspended briefly last week after the market slumped nine percent and followed the market regulator's proposed curbs on the flow of foreign funds into shares to stop the market overheating.

But this is not stopping clients from investing in markets abroad - they are simply going through large firms who have a license to trade in those areas, such as CLSA, Deutsche Bank, CitiBank and Chase, to name but a few investment institutions.

"You need to apply for licenses to buy those shares in a foreign market," said Mr. McKirdy.

"It is much better for a client to find a company that is already in that market and has a license, which they can create a derivative product backed by what they hold and distribute it back to their client base.

"At the end of the day, at the moment CLSA have 12 certificates, but the programme itself may run to over 200 securities and the reason they have been listing them here is that their underlying clients that want to buy them have the requirement that they are listed on a recognised stock exchange, such as the BSX."

To illustrate the point, just last Friday the BSX was advised by CLSA of certificate issuance increases for two certificates issued under its $7.5 billion Asian Securities Programme.

The share certificates in the Indian-listed company Bharti Airtel, which are due on May 31 2010, have been increased by the further issuance of 1,000 RegS certificates effective last Friday. The new total size of the RegS portion of these Certificates now stands at 14,592,000 certificates.

Share certificates in the Indian-listed company Reliance Communication Ventures due on February 24 2011 have been increased by the further issuance of 18,000 RegS certificates. The total of these certificates is now 2,646,000.