Sebi has proposed a new reporting system for mutual funds based on XBRL technology -- a globally accepted standardised business reporting tool that enables easy dissection of bulk documents without delay.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), which regulates fund houses, has issued a draft structure of the proposed XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) system for all the regulatory filings to be made by mutual funds.
XBRL technology enables the computers read and divide the information provided in the filings under various heads and thus makes it easy to find any relevant details and to identify any irregularities.
Sebi has been working to put in place a unified regulatory filing system for all listed companies and market entities in a standardised format based on XBRL technology.
To start with, Sebi is likely to make the new business reporting mechanism mandatory for mutual funds and then expand this system to other segments in phases.
"SEBI intends to set up a comprehensive reporting, filing and dissemination system for filing of information reports in XBRL by listed entities, registered intermediaries and other entities," a senior official said.
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The new system, called SUPER-D (Sebi Unified Platform for Electronic Reporting - Dissemination), is being developed in such a way that it is capable to manage simultaneous filing of 500 documents on normal days and have peak-period capacity to handle 15,000 simultaneous filings.
Besides disseminating the information on real-time basis to investors and others, the XBRL technology-based new system will also help Sebi itself as also other regulatory and investigative agencies in monitoring any irregularities in the affairs of companies and market intermediaries.
In addition to mandatory regulatory filings, including financial statements, the entities would have to use the new XBRL-based platform for all their reporting purposes to the regulator, the official added.
The system would also help in analysing the data for research and regulatory purposes and would have provision for automated report generation for regulatory purposes.
Once the system is put in place, all listed companies, as also market entities like foreign and domestic institutions and brokerages would need to make all their regulatory filings, including financial reporting and other disclosures, to the new unified platform in a common standardised format.
Currently, BSE and NSE have a XBRL-based financial reporting platform for listed companies for all their filings and the system helps the investors get real-time access.