SEBI issues clarifications on mutual fund exposure to bond futures

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Mutual fund houses are subject to trading member level position limits on investments in government bond futures, the capital markets regulator said in a circular issued on Monday.

Each fund scheme will have to separately comply with client level restrictions on the instrument, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said.

India launched physically settled bond futures earlier this year to allow market participants to bet on the direction of bond yields.

Trading members are allowed to have gross open positions of 10 percent of the total open interest of a bond future or 6 billion rupees ($98.10 million), whichever is higher.

Client level restrictions are currently capped at 3 percent of open interest or 2 billion rupees, whichever is higher.

For the SEBI circular, see (http://bit.ly/1uzS5cb)

(1 US dollar = 61.1600 rupees)

(Reporting by Himank Sharma; Editing by Sunil Nair)