Exchanges must comply with Weapons of Mass Destruction Act: Sebi

Capital markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday asked stock exchanges and intermediaries to comply with the rules, which deal with the prevention of financing related to weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems.

Under this, stock exchanges and intermediaries will have to maintain a record of designated persons, according to a Sebi circular.

In addition, they will have to keep a check and prevent financial transactions with individuals and entities in the designated list.

Further, they have been asked to immediately inform about such transactions to Chief Nodal Officer and file a suspicious transaction report with FIU-IND (Financial Intelligence Unit - India).

This came after the Ministry of Finance issued an order in January detailing the procedure for implementation of the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act (WMD Act).

The Act bans funding of weapons of mass destruction and also empowers the Centre to freeze, seize or attach financial assets and economic resources of people engaged in such activities.

Earlier, the regulations only banned the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.