India is yet to establish an easy and secure know your client (KYC) access for NRIs and this is an urgent goal, said Securities and Exchanges Board of India (Sebi) Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey, addressing brokers of the Bombay Stock Exchange.
To facilitate their participation in the securities markets, some measures are now under the testing stage, said Pandey. “A system for allowing the KYC to happen for NRIs, and they don’t have to come to India to do this. I hope this will be a very important development once it comes,” Pandey said.
SEBI calls for stronger crackdowns on cyber frauds and fake influencers
Protecting investors from cyber frauds and misleading advice of unregistered influencers will continue to be a major objective in collaboration with all market institutions and intermediaries. “Many people have been scammed out with their hard earned money evacuated through mule accounts, through cloned apps. It is our bounded duty to let it not happen,” Pandey said.
The daily traded volumes in cash equities market – the foundation of capital formation – has almost doubled to over Rs 1 lakh crore in just three years.
“More is required to be done to further deepen the cash equities market, and we will review framework consistent with risk management to make it happen,” Pandey said. Many regulatory measures have been taken by SEBI following analysis of detailed data on the short term derivative side, especially the index options.
“We will be thoughtful and consultative in suggesting further measures to improve this market, consistent with risk awareness and suitability of investors,” he said. Sebi is stress testing small and mid cap mutual fund schemes directly under enhanced Market resilience. “Their outcome empowers investors to make informed decisions,” he said.
The SEBI chief also said there will be more choices to investors and new opportunities to issuers in the real estate and infrastructure space. “Sebi will continue its focus on offering investors more choices for appropriate asset allocation, attuned to individual risk appetite,” he said.
SEBI plans overhaul of broker rules
Sebi is on course to rationalise and simplify comprehensively the stock broker regulation to reduce costs and compliance burden, consistent with appropriate risk management.
“We have already received many suggestions to SEBI’s consultation paper, and hopefully, I think some suggestions might also be coming and very soon, maybe in December,” he said.
SEBI has taken steps to rationalise FPI regulations. Compliance requirements for FPI is investing in government securities have been eased. Framework will offer a single window for trusted foreign investors, offering unified registration and lighter compliance. “An immediate goal now is to make the entire FPI registration as a portal based simple, fast, and digital process. We are already Consulting our stakeholders to implement it,” Pandey said.