'Channalise small savings to stock markets'

MUMBAI: SEBI today called for deepening of capital market to help attract household savings away from gold and real estate markets, as also for safeguarding investors from getting lured into ponzi schemes.

"While it is extremely important for the capital market to attract the domestic investor, our job as regulator is to ensure that it is safe for them.

"Capital market will have to improve the efficiency of capital to ensure that a large proportion of savings get channelised into the stock market. The small saver must not be hesitant to invest and here the regulators have a role," Sebi whole time member Rajeev Kumar Agarwal said.

He was addressing 28th Annual General Meeting of the International Council of Securities Association (ICSA) here.

The inaugural session of the two-day ICSA AGM for vibrant global capital market was held for the first time in India.

While markets have to keep performing their role of price discovery and ensure ease of public savings into the market, lest they get diverted into wrong ponzi schemes, Agarwal said emphasising on the need for investor education with focus on financial literacy.

On the Indian economy, Agarwal said the country will look at investing USD 1 trillion in infrastructure over the next five years and there is a need to attract savings into financial instruments rather than gold and real estate.

Calling for the need to balance regulations without being over-bearing or under-bearings its significance, Agarwal said, "Some mechanisation has to be found out to fund the infra from the market and the only option is to increase the size of the capital market."

Speaking at the inaugural session, Tajinder Singh, Secretary General, International Organisation of Securities Commission (IOSCO) said, "While risk and vulnerability in the market is being talked about, cyber resilience is a very serious issue with rising digital disruption. The rising scale of technological misconduct is now throwing new challenges to the regulators."



Stating that market regulators have now to work with telecom regulators, Tajinder Singh said internet is no more constraint within a particular country and has gone beyond borders. Hence, the regulator has to make the investor confident that he will not be cheated by cyber-crime.

Chairman of International Council for Securities Association, Ian Russell said, "This will give all of us the opportunity to better understand India and its people, its business community and importantly its enormous potential."

Russell expressed confidence that India will make its mark increasingly felt on the world stage in the years to come.