SEBI releases policy for data sharing for research; restricts use of individual entity's trading, holding data

If the requested data is very high in volume and/ or needs further processing/ value addition, MIIs may charge a cost-basis fee from the researcher to process and provide such data, said the circular.

The capital-markets regulator has released a uniform policy for stock exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories policy for sharing data for research.

Data shared with vendors for commercial purposes will not fall under this policy.

In a circular issued on December 20, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) asked the said market infrastructure institutions (MIIs) to segregate data into two baskets.

In the first will be data that can be shared with the public and in the second will be that which cannot be shared with the public such as KYC information or trade logs or holding details of an entity or an individual. The second basket will also include anonymised data that could be used to identify an individual or an entity directly or indirectly, said the circular.

The data in the first basket though freely available made be charged depending on the volume of data that will need to be made available.

On the data in the first basket, the circular said that this will include the following:

1.Data which is publicly available on respective website of each Stock Exchange, Depository and Clearing Corporation.

2.Data which is voluminous and cannot be placed on the respective websites of the MIIs. An indicative list of such data (including shareable anonymised data that cannot be used to identify an individual/ entity directly or indirectly), would be made available on the portals and MIIs would provide a reasonable amount of data requested by a researcher free of cost (upto 2 GB of data per researcher per year that requires no extra computation). However, if the requested data is very high in volume and/ or needs further processing/ value addition, MIIs may charge a cost-basis fee from the researcher to process and provide such data."

MIIs have been asked to share the data list under each basket with SEBI for approval, within 60 days of the issuance the circular.