Intern salaries at India's HFT firms now rival full-time pay
High-frequency trading (HFT) firms in India are seriously raising the bar for intern salaries, despite new regulations that have cut derivatives trading by over 40%.
IMC Trading BV now pays interns ₹12.5 lakh per month for 2025, triple what it offered in 2024.
Quadeye has also bumped its entry-level salary to ₹7.5 lakh, up 50% from last year.
Interns' pay vs average annual finance salary
These HFT intern offers stand out compared to the average annual finance salary of ₹7 lakh in India (per Glassdoor).
Even with tighter rules, the sector remains lucrative: foreign funds and algorithm-driven desks pulled in $7 billion in gross profits by March 2024.
Global firms like Citadel Securities are expanding locally, and about 70% of equity derivatives trades now use algorithms—so there's strong demand for sharp traders and engineers who can keep up.