To improve transparency in spot price discovery at commodity exchanges, the sector regulator FMC has asked the four national bourses to display prominently on their websites the spot pricing mechanism for every contract.
The move comes in the backdrop of several complaints from various market participants regarding lack of transparency in arriving at the spot market prices, the regulator said.
The FMC said that transparent discovery of spot prices is a critical factor in smooth running of futures market as it is used as the reference price for settlement.
"The Commission has decided that to improve the transparency of spot price polling process, the spot price polling mechanism for every contract shall be displayed prominently by all the commodity exchanges on their websites," the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) said in a recent directive to MCX, NCDEX, NMCE and ACE.
The exchanges have been asked to disclose details of the contract, mechanism of spot price polling, how spot prices are arrived at, whether these prices include or exclude taxes and other levies, whether spot prices polling has been outsourced, criteria for selection of polling participants and any other information that is used for improving transparency in arriving at spot prices, it said.
The exhanges may assign a code for polling agents of a particular contract and reveal his location, basis centre and price for the day. A feedback window should also be provided for receiving complaints in this regard, which exchanges should address in a time-bound manner, it added.
According to the FMC, information should be displayed on exchanges' website latest from December 15 and should be updated every day thereafter for every contract at the end of the day.
The information should continue to be displayed even after the expiry of the contract for a period of three years, it added.
Exchanges have been using 'spot price polling mechanism' to arrive at the prevailing spot prices. This is currently being done by polling spot prices reported by spot price polling participants. Some exchanges undertake this activity themselves whereas some have outsourced this work to an external agency, it added.
