Sebi to beef up surveillance mechanism

Regulator to enhance supervision of stock brokers and other intermediaries, raise standards for credit rating agencies

Continuing its efforts to protect investor interest, Sebi will focus on enhanced surveillance mechanism, increased supervision of market intermediaries and encourage ease of doing business through system-driven disclosures in the next fiscal.

At its meeting today, the Sebi board approved the regulator's budget for 2016-17 and also discussed the plan for action for the same period.

As part of increasing investor education and awareness efforts, Sebi plans to have at least one resource person in each district.

Sebi Chairman U K Sinha said the board discussed various issues, including energising the institutional trading platform, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), Infrastructure Investment Trusts (Invits) and municipal bond markets.

Charting out its action plan for 2016-17, the regulator said it would look at encouraging ease of doing business through system-driven disclosures as well as dividend distribution policy by listed companies and delisting of suspended firms.

Strengthening measures to curb malpractices and protect interest of investors, Sebi will enhance supervision of stock brokers and other intermediaries, raise standards for credit rating agencies and strengthen the surveillance mechanism.

Another focus in the next fiscal will be to encourage "use of technology to streamline know your customer (KYC) procedure and augment the reach and depth of the market, especially for mutual funds".

Sinha said the National Institute of Securities Market (NSIM) will play an important role in terms of training, certification and research in financial markets.

Among others, the watchdog will look at developing an integrated database on commodity derivatives and introduce new products in this segment.