Wednesday 19 March 2014

Sebi to seek extra funds for investor programmes


To bolster awareness among investors and ring-fence them from possible frauds, capital markets regulator Sebi plans to seek additional funds from the government for strengthening its IPEF (Investor Protection and Education Fund) programmes.

With expenses towards various investor protection and education initiatives estimated to be nearly Rs 55 crore for next fiscal, Sebi may seek board’s approval for additional funding for IPEF, a senior official said. Investor Protection and Education Fund (IPEF), set up by Sebi, had a corpus of Rs 35 crore at the end of January 2014.

The Sebi board is also expected to consider a significant revision in fee charges from various entities so as to meet expenses for its regulatory and investor-centric activities.Meanwhile, Sebi wants to recover legal expenses incurred in such litigations from penalties imposed by it on defaulters before crediting the same to the government's coffers.

Further, Sebi is also considering to charge ‘processing fees’ for various service requests from companies, stock exchanges and market intermediaries, as many of such services are being provided for free despite significant costs incurred by the regulator in such matters, sources said.Fees are proposed to be levied on all service requests, barring investor complaints, while existing fees can be hiked for services like informal guidance and consent settlement. These are based on recommendations made by a Committee on Rationalisation of Financial Resources.


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