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The Securities and Exchange Board of India, Tuhin Kanta Pandey on Saturday said the regulator is working to make India's capital markets more accessible, efficient and resilient, with a focus on simplifying fundraising processes, reducing compliance burdens and strengthening investor protection.
Addressing an event organised by the Bharat Chamber of Commerce to mark its 125th anniversary and launch the Bharat Chamber Investors' Forum, Pandey said building world-class capital markets would require more than higher market capitalisation and trading volumes, emphasising the need to connect household savings with productive investments. "Good businesses should be able to access suitable forms of capital through efficient and transparent processes," he said, outlining the steps taken by the regulator to facilitate capital formation and improve ease of doing business. SEBI has streamlined initial public offering (IPO) processes, shortened timelines for rights issues and rationalised listing requirements for large issuers. It has also allowed founders, subject to prescribed conditions, to retain certain employee stock options after listing. On the debt market side, the regulator has reduced listing timelines for public issues, enabled debt securities with lower face values and relaxed the mandatory merchant banking requirement for certain eligible issuers undertaking private placements. Pandey said these measures were aimed at reducing issuance costs while retaining appropriate safeguards. He added that SEBI was reviewing regulatory processes to make compliance more proportionate and risk-based without compromising governance and market integrity. Highlighting the growth of India's capital markets, he said market capitalisation had grown at an annual rate of around 17 per cent over the past decade, while mutual fund assets had expanded by around 20 per cent annually. The number of unique investors in the securities market has increased fourfold since FY19 to more than 15 crore. Companies raised over Rs 98,000 crore through 189 initial public offerings in the first half of the current financial year, while outstanding corporate bonds stood at around Rs 61 lakh crore, he said. Referring to West Bengal's growing participation, Pandey said the number of securities market investors from the state had risen to over 90 lakh from around 12 lakh in FY15, with approximately 36 per cent below 30 years of age. He also stressed that increasing reliance on technology makes cybersecurity, operational resilience, surveillance and risk management critical, adding that world-class markets must remain resilient during periods of stress. (ANI)
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