Plans unified filing system for firms, entities

Sebi is putting in place a unified regulatory filing system for all listed companies and market entities in a standardised format to enable dissection of bulky documents for relevant information without any delay. Besides disseminating the information on a real-time basis to investors and others, the extensible business reporting language (XBRL) technology-based new system will also help Sebi itself as also other regulatory and investigative agencies in monitoring any irregularities in the affairs of companies and market intermediaries.

Sebi is currently in the process of finalising the technology provider for the system, a senior official said. “Sebi intends to set up a comprehensive reporting, filing and dissemination system for filing of information reports in XBRL by listed entities, registered intermediaries and other entities,” the official said. In addition to mandatory regulatory filings to be made under listing agreements and other regulations, the entities would have to use the new XBRL-based platform for all their reporting purposes to the regulator, the official added. XBRL technology enables the computers read and divide the information provided in the filings under various heads and thus makes it easy to find any relevant details and to identify any irregularities.