Sebi may soon issue norms mandating foreign brokers to store data locally

Sebi fears a country can block access in case of data war

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) may soon come up with guidelines that mandate foreign entities to store data pertaining to India locally.

Several foreign brokerages and custodians typically store data digitally in regional centres such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

The regulator is concerned that access to such data could be blocked by another country in the event of a data war. It wants all such data to be stored on servers in India or a real-time backup to be created, enabling access from within the country.

“Foreign brokerages access servers in Singapore and Hong Kong for