Sebi mulls allowing depositories to use IPF income for specific expenses

Market regulator says excess expenses beyond the proposed limit must continue to be borne by depositories and unused amounts returned to the IPF corpus

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Monday proposed allowing depositories to utilise a portion of the interest or income earned from investments of their Investor Protection Fund (IPF) corpus to meet certain operational expenses.

 

Under the proposal, depositories would be permitted to use up to 5 per cent of the interest or income generated from the IPF towards expenses related to dedicated employees of the respective IPF trusts, as well as administrative and statutory costs such as taxes, audit fees, and charity commissioner fees.

 

“In case the expenses exceed the above limit, such excess expenses shall be borne by the depository and, in case of non-utilisation of such amount in the same financial year, the same shall be ploughed back into the IPF,” Sebi said in its consultation paper.

 

As of FY26, the IPF corpus of National Securities Depository (NSDL) stood at ₹87.78 crore, while that of Central Depository Services (India) (CDSL) was  ₹95.18 crore.

 

Currently, all such expenses are borne by the depositories from their own income, even when they are directly related to the functioning of the IPF trust. Sebi noted that stock exchanges are already permitted to utilise up to 5 per cent of the interest or income earned from their IPF corpus for specified expenses.

 

Under existing norms, the IPF corpus and the income generated from it can be used for investor education and awareness programmes, support initiatives undertaken by depository participants for investor outreach, and settlement of legitimate claims of beneficial owners up to a prescribed limit, among other purposes.