KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange Limited has opened negotiations to buy additional shares in National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited, the entity that settles every trade executed on the country's main bourse, according to a disclosure filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan on Thursday.

PSX confirmed the talks in a letter addressed to the Director of SECP's Corporate Supervision Department in Islamabad. The exchange copied its own Chief Regulatory Officer and two SECP enforcement divisions on the letter a distribution list that signals how closely regulators track ownership changes at Pakistan's market infrastructure firms.

NCCPL does more than process trades. It clears and settles transactions for every broker and custodian on PSX, manages settlement risk across the exchange, and calculates capital gains tax for investors trading Pakistani equities. A change in who controls the company touches pricing, risk management and tax administration for the entire market, not just PSX's balance sheet.

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The timing is related to regulatory changes that SECP has made in two rulebooks. These rulebooks are Clearing Houses (Licensing and Operations) Regulations, 2016 and Central Depositories (Licensing and Operations) Regulations, 2016. The above mentioned regulations have increased the cap on the holdings of foreign shareholding in companies like NCCPL. The revised rules widen the room PSX has to increase its own stake and open a path for foreign capital to follow.

PSX NCCPL Stake

PSX has not disclosed which shareholders it is in talks with, how many shares it wants to acquire, or what it might pay. The letter gives no timeline for reaching an agreement. Disclosure describes the process as preliminary and states directly that no agreement or transaction has been concluded.

That caveat matters. PSX operates under continuous-disclosure rules that require it to inform SECP and the market as soon as material discussions begin, well before any deal takes shape. The letter satisfies that obligation rather than announcing a completed transaction. PSX said it will file again only once it signs a definitive agreement or reaches another material milestone.

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The move fits a broader pattern in Pakistan's capital markets regulation: SECP has been easing foreign ownership limits across key institutions as part of an effort to draw in portfolio investment and strengthen local market infrastructure. Clearing houses and depositories, once tightly held, are increasingly open to larger stakes from both domestic exchanges and international investors under the revised framework.

For PSX, a bigger stake in NCCPL would give the exchange more direct influence over how clearing costs are set and how quickly trades settle two operational levers that affect every broker and every trade executed on the exchange. Brokers have raised both issues in the past, though PSX's letter makes no reference to specific complaints or planned changes to fee structures.