SEBI Focussed On Expediting IPO Applications, Ensuring Ease Of Compliance Reporting: Madhabi Puri Buch

Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is focussed on accelerating the approval of applications for the companies in the fintech industry that are looking to get listed on the public market, said chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch.

Speaking during the Global Fintech Fest (GFF) 2024 today (August 29), Buch said, “If the fintech industry has reached a certain level of maturity and now they [companies] want to IPO, the private equity investors want to exit, the markets are good, this is the time when we should not be wasting time in getting approvals.”

She added that to ensure the IPO processes of these companies are streamlined, SEBI has been meticulously tracking the overall ageing and pendency of the IPO applications since March 2022. Over the last 12 quarters, the total number of IPO papers pending has dramatically declined.

Largely, the latest pending IPO applications have “either a judicial intervention or there is a regulatory approval pending from another fellow regulator”, Buch said.

Meanwhile, stressing once again on the technology adoption by the SEBI, Buch said that currently almost a dozen projects using AI are in the works.

“Half of those (the projects), roughly speaking, are ones which will speed up our approval process, and half of them, roughly, are the ones that will speed up our supervision process,” she said, adding that by actively using AI, SEBI would also be able to bring down the ageing of the pending IPO applications further.

The chairperson said in another conference earlier this month that the market regulator has started leveraging the power of AI for the processing of IPO documents.

Buch, who made her first public appearance since US-based short seller Hindenburg’s report alleging her of holding stake in offshore funds linked to the alleged Adani “scandal”, emphasised the need for adhering to the compliance requirements as well.

“The role of the regulator, of regulations, the role of compliance, is really to give protection to the consumer, or to the investor, in the case of markets. Equally on the business side, regulations and compliance are important because they foster trust in the system,” said Buch.

She further said that compliance should become a “low hum in the background” of every organisation.

“This is our ultimate objective in SEBI… that for every entity that we regulate, compliance should simply be a low hum which goes on in the background,” Buch said.

“The real capability of our entrepreneurs, our industrialists, our entire economy, is really focussed on growing the country and delivering services to its citizens. Compliance should just become this low hum in the background,” she added.

In fact, SEBI has also taken various measures to facilitate the ease of compliance and reporting by listed entities, which includes converting many reports to XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) and ensuring the adoption of APIs by market infrastructure institutions.