Consolidated records for all MF, demat securities from March

Moving towards maintaining one record for all financial assets of an individual, Sebi today said a single consolidated view of all investments made by a person in mutual funds and other securities held in demat form would be provided from March 2015.
Creation of one record for all financial assets of every individual had been decided in the interim budget this year.
"As a first step in this direction, it has been decided to enable a single consolidated view of all the investments of an investor in Mutual Funds (MF) and securities held in demat form with the Depositories," Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular today.

The move comes after extensive deliberations by the regulator with the depositories, AMFI and RTAs of Mutual Funds (MF-RTAs), the capital market regulator said.
To initiate the process, Sebi has asked the depositories, the Asset Management Companies (AMCs) as well as MF-RTAs to "put in place systems to facilitate generation and dispatch of single Consolidated Account Statements (CAS) for investors having MF investments and holding demat accounts".
"AMCs/ RTAs shall share the requisite information with the Depositories on monthly basis to enable generation of CAS," it added.

The consolidated record would be implemented from March 2015 with respect to the transactions carried out during February, the same year.

According to Sebi directives, the record would be done on the basis of PAN (Permanent Account Number).
"Based on the PANs provided by the AMCs/MF-RTAs, the depositories shall match their PAN database to determine the common PANs and allocate the PANs among themselves for the purpose of sending CAS," Sebi said.
"For PANs which are common between depositories and AMCs, the Depositories shall send the CAS," the regulator added.
The AMCs /MF-RTAs would have to provide the data with respect to the common PANs to the depositories within three days from the month end.
In cases where investors have multiple accounts across the two depositories, the depository having the demat account which has been opened earlier shall be the "default depository" for consolidating the records.

"However, option shall be given to the demat account holder by the default depository to choose the depository through which the investor wishes to receive the CAS," Sebi said.
Further, the AMCs and the depositories have been directed to put in place a proper grievance redressal mechanism with respect to the process.