Investor Service Centres to provide certain basic facilities: Sebi

Amid technological advancements in the securities market, Sebi on Monday asked stock exchanges to provide certain basic minimum facilities to the investors at Investor Service Centres (ISCs) and upgrade the knowledge of officials of these centres.

In order to reach out to investors across India, Sebi asked stock exchanges to use the existing ISCs and open additional centres, wherever required. The ISCs can be set up either by one stock exchange or jointly by two or more exchanges, as per their mutual agreement.

The new directive would come into force from the 90th day from this Monday, while those related to knowledge upgradation will be compiled in a phased manner, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular.

The markets regulator, in December 1997, asked all stock exchanges to open or maintain at least one ISC for the benefit of the investors. Such centres are required to provide counselling services and provide certain basic minimum facilities to the investors. The major stock exchanges were allowed to open as many ISCs as required.

Subsequently, Sebi in July 2013 mandated that apart from the ISCs that are operating in metro cities -- New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata -- stock exchanges having nationwide terminals will open ISCs in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kanpur, Indore, Bangalore, Pune, Jaipur, Ghaziabad, Lucknow, Gurgaon, Patna and Vadodara.

With regard to basic minimum facilities for investors, Sebi said that ICS would be required to provide a dedicated desktop or laptop with internet connectivity to enable the investors to access various relevant information available in the public domain and also to access the grievance redressal portal of the market regulator and stock exchanges.

ICSs will have to give facilities for receiving investor complaints in both physical and electronic forms. Further, one dedicated staff would be posted at the ISC to register investor complaints and also to guide and counsel the investors.

Such investors' centres need to provide financial daily newspapers with at least one in the regional language of the place where the ISC is situated. In case, the financial newspaper is not available in the regional language of the place, any leading newspaper in that regional language would be provided.

Besides, all the ISCs should have arbitration and appellate arbitration facilities, including a video-calling facility for investors for attending their online arbitration or grievance redressal meetings.

For the up-gradation of knowledge of officials at ISCs, stock exchanges will have to ensure that all the officials at ISCs have been provided adequate training on various areas of the securities market, how to counsel or guide the investors to appropriately lodge their complaints, including lodging of complaints on SCORES platforms, how to resolve the investor grievances, promotion of investor education and awareness to enhance securities market literacy and retail participation.

The training on the securities market would cover an overview of both primary and secondary markets, functions and operations of exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories, and functions and operations of market intermediaries dealing with investors, such as stock brokers, depository participants, mutual funds, advisers, research analysts, portfolio managers, Registrar and Transfer Agents (RTAs).