The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has asked market intermediaries to make data disseminated by various sources available to users for viewing and downloading ‘free of charge'. The move will make the accessibility and usability of data easier for the public.

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Setting up the committee

Recently, Sebi restructured its advisory committee on market data so that they could suggest policy measures related to securities market data access and privacy. The Market Data Advisory Committee (MDAC) is now chaired by S Sahoo, professor at National Law University, Delhi, and former chairperson of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India.

The committee was tasked to identify segment-wise data perimeters, needs and gaps in the data available, and suggest privacy and access regulations for such data.

After detailed deliberation on public dissemination of data, the MDAC came out with a framework for market intermediaries with regard to terms of usage of data provided by various sources in the Indian securities markets.

Who are market intermediaries?

As per Section 11 and Section 12 of SEBI Act, 1992, those associated with the securities market in any manner are market intermediaries. These include stockbrokers, sub-brokers, portfolio managers, share transfer agents, custodians of securities, merchant bankers, depositories, registrars to an issue, investment advisers, foreign institutional investors, underwriters, venture capital funds, mutual funds, asset management companies and credit rating agencies.

What are the new rules?

According to Sebi, such data should “be made available to users, free of charge both for 'viewing' the data as also for download in the format as specified by the regulatory mandate for reporting, as well as their usage for the value addition purposes". The market regulator also said chargeable data should be appropriately identified in the public domain.

Why is it necessary

The financial markets are driven by data and are a rich source of information. With the growth in the financial markets over the years, the volume and variety of data have also increased, PTI reported.

Against this backdrop, the need for addressing information asymmetry for informed investors and multiple stakeholders in the market “cannot be overemphasised”, Sebi said in a circular on Friday.

According to Sebi, value-added service providers will play a crucial role in making a variety of information available to the stakeholders in a user-friendly form.

Who provides the data?

A large quantum of data is disseminated by various sources such as market infrastructure institutions pursuant to regulatory mandates for reporting and disclosure in the public domain.