Mumbai, Dec 10 (IANS): The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) on Thursday said it has received an approval from the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to launch derivatives on the Nifty Financial Services Index in the 'futures & options' segment of the exchange.

Currently, the NSE offers index derivatives on only two equity indices 'Nifty 50 Index' and the 'Nifty Bank Index'.

The exchange will launch the index derivatives from January 11, 2021.

As per the NSE, the financial services sector assumes significance as the sector accounts for 33.5 per cent of the Nifty 500 index.

"The Nifty Financial Services Index comprises of 20 stocks and is designed to reflect the behaviour and performance of the Indian financial market which includes banks, financial institutions, housing finance, insurance companies and other financial services companies," the NSE said in a statement.

Recent investment data of Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) indicates that 48 per cent of new investment flows were channelised into the financial services sector, as per the statement.

"The sector accounted for 35 per cent of the assets under the custody of FPIs. Further, many of the asset management companies have mutual fund schemes on the financial sector theme."

"The Nifty Financial Services index has a 94 per cent correlation and a beta value of 1.2 with the Nifty 50 Index. It has a correlation of 98 per cent with the Nifty Bank index. The Nifty Financial Services index has delivered annualised returns of 14.99 per cent in the last 5 years."

According to the exchange, it will offer 'futures and options' in seven serial weekly excluding the monthly expiry and three serial monthly contracts.

"This is the first time that the exchange will make available weekly futures for the stock index derivatives," the statement said.