Adoption of technology has helped Sebi conduct extensive consultations before coming out with new rules, said Buch. “Imagine if we had tried to do this manually (on analysing the 6,000 comments received). We would have died!,” she said
The regulator had proposed to increase the minimum contract size for index derivatives such as Nifty and Sensex to up to ₹30 lakh from the existing ₹5-10 lakh. It also had suggested that weekly options contracts would be allowed for only one benchmark index of on the exchange.
Buch said the regulator aimed to make compliances easier for companies. “If compliances are tangled, business is hard,” she said.
“This is our ultimate objective in Sebi that every entity we regulate, compliance should simply be a low hum which goes on in the background. It is like each one of us is just breathing, and we are not having to think about breathing.”The regulatory body head said there was a positive response to the small and medium REITs (real estate investment trusts) and the industry came forward and sought regulation on such entities. “They wanted to be regulated. They were operating in an unregulated environment and were suffering from the fact that investors did not have faith and trust in their products and services because it was unregulated,” she said.