Sub-brokers moving to 'Authorised Person' role in market: Sebi

In a major shift in the functioning of stock market participants, thousands of entities have surrendered their 'sub-broker' registration and are becoming 'Authorised Persons', who perform similar roles but need to follow a simpler operating and registration procedure.
The role of APs is akin to that of sub-broker - assisting investors in buying, selling or dealing in securities through stock-brokers.
APs are required to be approved by stock exchange and do not require registration with market regulator Sebi.
After reports about a surge in surrender of certificates of registration by sub brokers during the April-September period last year, Sebi said today that "it is observed that increasingly the entities are seeking approval as APs rather than acting as sub brokers".

Sebi had introduced the concept of 'Authorised Persons' in 2009 to help registered stock brokers of stock exchanges to provide access to clients through these APs.
As per records, the Sebi has approved 13,396 surrender applications of sub brokers between April and September.

During the same period, the net addition of APs was 15,465 {number of approvals granted to APs is 23,703 minus the number of surrender of APs is 8,238}. It was more than the number (13,396) of surrender of registration of sub brokers, Sebi said.
According to the data provided by Sebi, a total of 56,992 sub-brokers were registered with Sebi as on September 30. In comparison 70,178 sub-brokers were registered with the market regulator as on March 31 last year.

At the same time, the number of APs at the end of September stood at 1,40,738 compared to 1,25,273 as on March 31.