 "Sebi-FMC merger by Sept, 6 months ahead of schedule")
While announcing the merger in February, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had granted a one-year timeline.
Sebi chairman U K Sinha, said, “We are meeting with FMC officials regularly. The merger of FMC with Sebi will be complete by September.” Sinha was addressing media after its board meeting here on Tuesday.
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Once the merger takes place, all commodity exchanges will be treated as equity exchanges and will be governed by the new set of regulations under Sebi.
“We are reviewing each and every circular and guidelines issued by the FMC. We are also reviewing the existing rules and regulations issued by them. But we will have our own rules and regulations, which we hope to be ready in two months from now. It is sacrosanct for us that whatever guidelines are under Sebi’s domain for equity exchanges will be applicable for commodity exchanges,” said Sinha, adding that in case some guidelines are not currently adhered to by any entity, we will give a reasonable time to migrate to our set of guidelines. That is the approach we are following. Guidelines with regard to shareholding would not be done in a disruptive manner.”
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While MCX and NCDEX are largely compliant for ownership norms of Sebi also, NMCX has some of the investors holding more than prescribed limit. Even last year FMC had given them time of three years to comply with new ownership norms which are in line with Sebi norms, now Sebi will take a final call on timeline for them to comply with its norms.Sebi is also looking to build a team of 50-60 personnel dedicated for commodity exchanges. While some of the existing FMC officials will be absorbed by Sebi, others will be taken from the market.
“We will apply our mind to take some good people from the FMC while others will have to go back to the parent ministry as per the laws passed by Parliament,” said Sinha.
Under the laws, the existing personnel of FMC will be eligible for induction into Sebi. Following the deadline of merger, Sebi will start building a team of personnel especially for monitoring commodity exchanges.
When asked about the need for a special budget for the merger, Sinha said, “I hope there will be support as the government has already been giving financial support to the FMC. But Sebi is proud of the fact that it has never received any support from the government from Day One except early formation years when some loans were granted. The same loan, however, was returned to the government with interest.”
May be initial time period, SEBI might require some financial support, otherwise not, he added.