Creator Economy Summit: Finfluencers self-policing as a community will be ideal, says SEBI official

Ananth Narayan, whole time member of SEBI

Self policing the finfluencer community would be the best for everyone, Ananth Narayan, whole-time member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said while speaking at the Moneycontrol Creator Economy Summit at Mumbai on October 31.

“If you want your community to gain, tell us what is going wrong. It gives us a lot of comfort to know that there is a community that is taking care of its problems,” Narayan elaborated saying that the finfluencer community is in the best position to show the bad apples in the industry.

Narayan said that finfluencers need to communicate and help the market regulator form better regulations. “Help us, come back with feedback. Refer to other jurisdictions and show us the way. Talk to us about how something can slip through the regulations and how we can prevent this," he asked the finfluencers.

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Even the market regulator can make mistakes and is not perfect, according to Narayan. “Regulators could make errors. First, we let bad things happen. The second error is getting in the way of good things happening, like making regulations so difficult that good people can't do business”, he added.

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Narayan reiterated that the market regulator is not going to baby sit investors and finfluencers and just wants finfluencers to provide quality education to investors. "Our job is not to create a nanny state. What I would love to see from content creators is high quality education. If you were advising your brother or mother, what advice would you give them? You wouldn't worry about who is paying you. The best content comes from the industry itself. Things like education and capital formation are too important, and should not be left to the regulator alone" Narayan added.

When asked whether increasing taxation for derivative trading would be better like taxing gambling ads to discourage excessive trading, Narayan conceded that there is logic in the suggestion, but said that it is out of syllabus and not in his domain to make a decision.