Financial Technologies (India) Ltd (FTIL) is the parent company of National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL), a commodities trading platform. In 2014, the government proposed merging NSEL into FTIL to address investor losses from a crisis at NSEL. FTIL employees opposed the merger on social media using the hashtag #STOPMERGER, which received over 500 posts and was seen by over 9000 users. The Bombay High Court ordered the government to fully consider all parties' views before issuing a final order on the merger.

2. • Financial Technologies (India) Ltd. is the company of the
Financial Technologies Group.
• FTIL is a global leader in creating and operating technology-
fundamentals, next-generation financial markets that are
transparent, efficient and liquid, across multi asset classes,
including equities, commodities, currencies and bonds, among
others

3. • National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) is the
national –level, institutionalized, electronic,
transparent spot trading platform for commodities.
• NSEL provides customized solution to farmers,
traders, processors, exporters, importers,
arbitrageurs, investors and other stakeholders
pertaining to commodity procurement, storage,
marketing, warehouse receipt financing, etc.
• NSEL is one of the subsidiary company of FTIL.

4. • On 21st October 2014, the Government issued a draft
order suggesting to merge NSEL and FTIL in public
interest.
• FTIL-NSEL merger was recommended by the
commodities market regulator ‘Forward Markets
Commission’ (FMC) on demand of investors affected by
the NSEL crisis.
• If the merger does take place FTIL would take over all
the liabilities of NSEL.
• The draft order was put up for feedback from NSEL
stakeholders and the public.

5. • On 5th February 2015, Bombay high court
directed the government to hear all the
parties and their contention and pass a final
order of the hearing.
• Bombay High Court also mentioned that the
government’s final order, once it is passed,
will be kept in abeyance till the court hears
the case and the final order will be subject to
the court’s clearance.

7. • FTIL employees logged in their Twitter & Facebook accounts
to post anti-merger tweets on STOPMERGER.
• As per media reports, a real time hash-tag (#) tracking tool,
there were over 500 posts with #STOPMERGER on 19th March
2015.
• STOPMERGER tweets were noticed by more than 9000 Twitter
users.
• Nearly 98% of the posts were Retweeted.

8. • Data sourced from Twitter show that opponents
of the merger used the hash tag #STOPMERGER
to get their message across.
• There were over 200 tweets per minute
opposing the merger.
• On 2 March, there were 260 such tweets per
minute followed by 210 tweets per minute the
next day.
• Analysis of such tweets further shows that
individual accounts expressed their solidarity
against the merger by posting pictures that said
they were “United Against Forced
Amalgamation”.

9. • All FTIL shareholders have also been sent mails to oppose
the proposed merger from a group called “Share Holder’s
Association of FTIL”.
• An FTIL statement issued on 10 March said that 99.5% of its
shareholders sent a mail to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs,
protesting against the proposed merger.

10. • If the merger does take place, employees could face possible
termination. It is most likely to adversely affect more than 1000
FTIL employees & their families.
• Forcefully merging NSEL with FTIL will make FTIL commercially
unviable as its net worth will gradually erode.
• As per print advertisements, 5th April 2015 was the deadline for
the government to pass a final order on FTIL-NSEL merger
proposal.