Single-window clearance for foreign investors: SEBI
It hopes for long-term capital flows into the country
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed a single-window clearance and access to India’s securities markets for overseas investors. These include government-owned foreign investment firms, sovereign wealth funds and firms that pool funds from retail investors in the low-risk category.
The market regulator intends encouraging foreign investors for long-term capital flows in the country.
SEBI’s annual report for 2024-25 stated that it would undertake a comprehensive exercise to rationalize and optimize existing regulations this year. To ease the compliance burden, it identified and removed regulatory redundancies.
Recently, it offered to ease disclosures, seeking shareholders’ consent for low-value transactions between interconnected entities, or ‘related parties.’ It intended to upgrade the cybersecurity infrastructure to mitigate threats and anomalies in trading activity.
SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey had stated that the regulator was enhancing its surveillance to scrutinize manipulation in derivatives trading. This happened days after it barred U.S. firm Jane Street from the local markets over the manipulation of stock indexes.
Meanwhile, the market regulator also flagged concerns over high trading activity in index options on the expiry day, ‘when premiums were very small.’ The regulatory data revealed that on average, 90 percent of index options trading happens on the expiry day of the contract, with 30 percent, traded in the last 60 minutes.