SEBI Chief says, establishing easy, secure KYC access for NRIs for market participation is urgent goal
mumbai [India]: SEBI Chief Tuhin Kanta Pandey highlighted the urgent objective to create an easy and secure KYC access for Non-Resident Indians to facilitate their participation in the securities market.
Speaking at BFF Capital Market Confluence 2025 in Mumbai, he said that although SEBI has simplified KYC norms and allowed transactions and securities as soon as the process is completed, the system for NRIs still needs to be modernised.
“We have a long way to go in terms of investor awareness. We have simplified KYC norms and allowed transactions and securities as soon as this process is completed. However, we are yet to create an easy and secure KYC access for NRIs to facilitate their participation in the security market, which will be an immediate goal for us,” Pandey said.
He emphasized that a resilient market is one where there is broad, deep and knowledgeable participation.
Citing a recent nationwide survey, Pandey pointed out that although 63 per cent of households are aware of securities products, only 9.5 per cent are actively participating. Turnout is significantly higher in urban areas at 15 percent compared to 6 percent in rural areas, which is in line with expectations.
The survey also found that only 36 percent of investors have high or moderate knowledge of the securities market; This points to a significant gap in awareness.
Highlighting the scale of India’s securities infrastructure, the SEBI chief said: “On any given day, our exchanges deal with a staggering volume of activity. In the last financial year, they processed an average of over 1,600 crore messages per day, with the highest figure being over 2,900 crore messages. Behind these numbers is the trust of millions of investors. This is the trust we must always maintain.”
Pandey outlined SEBI’s strategic pillars for market resilience, starting with technology.
He noted the rapid growth of algorithmic and high-frequency trading, which now accounts for significant volumes in the equity and derivatives markets. SEBI will continue to update its regulatory framework to ensure a fair, transparent and resilient market.
Regarding cyber security, he warned that an attack on a single institution could destabilize the entire ecosystem.
“We have published a comprehensive cybersecurity and cyber resilience framework. Guidelines for net gaps, a key component, will be issued in consultation with MIIs. Our MIIs are being stress tested with live disaster recovery exercises. We have implemented redundancy models for peer companies and are reviewing safety nets for custodian participant outages, as is done for soft brokers,” he added.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to the text.
