India Index Services & Products Ltd. (IISL),a joint venture between NSE and CRISIL Ltd., was set up in May 1998 to provide a variety of indices and index related services and products for the Indian capital markets. It has a consulting and licensing agreement with Standard and Poor's (S&P), the world's leading provider of investible equity indices, for co-branding equity indices.

IISL provides a broad range of index based products and services. It maintains over 80 equity indices comprising broad-based benchmark indices, sectoral indices and customised indices.

Many investment and risk management products based on IISL indices have been developed in the recent past, within India and abroad. These include index based derivatives traded on NSE and Singapore Exchange (SIMEX) and a number of index funds.

» About S&P
» Objectives of IISL

About S&P
S&P owns the most important index in the world, the S&P 500 index, which is the foundation of the largest index funds and most liquid index futures markets in the world. The S&P 500 index is used by professionals around the world as the standard measure of the US market. Over US$ 800 billion is indexed, or directly linked, to the S&P 500 through index or tracker funds, more than any other index in the world. Daily trading volumes of derivatives transactions based on the S&P 500 amount to over US$ 50 billion.

Standard & Poor's plays an active role in the construction, development and maintenance of IISL's indices and brings its international expertise to the joint venture. With this involvement, IISL is committed to providing to the market the same assured quality, objectivity, integrity and service which are a constant source of inspiration to the international markets. This marks the first time Standard & Poor's, the world's largest index services provider, has offered its brand name and technical support to any such venture anywhere in the world.

Objectives of IISL
IISL pools the index development efforts of CRISIL and NSE into a coordinated whole - India's first specialised company focussed upon the index as a core product. IISL was launched with the following objectives:

»	To develop, construct and maintain indices on Indian equities and Commodities that serve as useful market performance benchmarks and are the underlying indices for derivatives trading
»	To develop related products and services which can be used by investors for managing their exposures in the equity and commodity markets
»	To provide data and information on the trading activity in the Indian stock and Commodity markets
»	To provide market participants with value added research on the Indian equity and Commoditymarkets