New Delhi: Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) madabipuri book The markets regulator is exploring the use of artificial intelligence to approve IPOS and mutual fund (MF) applications faster, it said on Friday.
“There are already a lot of AI-driven projects underway within SEBI, and one of the key uses of AI that we are deploying is to process all applications faster so that we can turn things around faster.” Buch at SEBI Samvad at the opening ceremony of the seminar.
Buch highlighted that as of November 2024, only two IPO applications were waiting for approval for more than six months, which is a significant improvement from eight in March 2022.
The same is true for mutual fund applications, she said, with only one such fund application pending six months ago as of November 2024. In March 2022, the number was 69.
The introduction of artificial intelligence will further shorten the time for IPO and MF approval. Bucher said the Indian IPO market is booming, with a large number of applications received every week.
“So if we look at today, in the last nine months alone, there has been an equity ray of Rs 3.3 lakh crore in the last three months alone. So in the last nine months, you can safely assume another balance point.
Although financing through equity has increased over the years, preference share issuances and rights issues sometimes go unnoticed in the primary market.
“We tried to increase the rights issue by doing a Fastrack rights issue first and then a preferential issue,” Bucher said.
Buch also stressed the need for a Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) of Rs 250 cr for MFs. She said that just as capital formation is important for economic growth, inclusion is equally important and therefore the proposed Rs 250 SIP is crucial to enhance financial inclusion.
Buch asked State Bank of India Chairman Challa Sreenivasalu, who was present at the event, to support and promote micro-SIPs by talking to the mutual fund business.
The SIP, priced at Rs 250, is expected to be launched soon, but the exact date has not been officially announced yet.
The SEBI Chairman also talked about the potential of REITs, InvITS and municipal bonds and said that they have the potential to grow in the next 10 years.
Buch also highlighted that India’s weighting in the MSCI index has been rising steadily, and as a result, the Indian stock market now automatically gets a 20% share of global passive funds as part of the inflows into the emerging market index.
