Sebi board to meet on Mar 8 to discuss MF, debt mkt issues

The board of Sebi is scheduled to meet on March 8, 2013. In the meeting the board is likely to take a decision on issues including mutual funds regulations for products under the Rajiv Gandhi Equity Saving Scheme (RGESS) and steps to broaden and regulate the debt market, reports Nayantara Rai of CNBC-TV18.

Decision on amendments for the mutual fund regulations to give a fillip to the Rajiv Gandhi Equity Saving Scheme. These changes will come in after the feedback that Sebi had received from Asset Management Company (AMCs). 

For example, the initial opening offering period for these mutual funds under this scheme could be doubled to 30 days whereas for closing the accounts, allotting the unit, refunding the investors, the timeline for the AMCs could be increased from five days to 15 days. Increasing penetration and to get more investors on board is the idea behind the changes in regulations as far as mutual funds is concerned.

Yesterday, the FM talked about doing away with certain sub-limits to broaden and regulate the debt market. It seems like Sebi and FM are working together to broaden the debt market.

In its meet, Sebi is likely to give approval to two new products like non convertible redeemable preference shares and PNCPS or the perpetual non-cumulative preference shares. The later can be used by banks to raise tier I capital.

But at the same time, Sebi will also try and regulate the debt markets. For example, we will see prospectus if companies want to roll out any product. For example, in case of Sahara, when they went to the debt markets, the government and agencies were not aware but now they will be aware about it.