SEBI Partners Infosys, Wipro, IBM To Tackle Stock Trading Discrepancies

The Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has partnered with eight IT companies to incorporate data analytics in its functioning to tackle discrepancies in trading markets of India. As of now, SEBI has shortlisted Infosys, Wipro, and IBM among others to prevent unethical practices such as insider trading and front running to occur on the trading platforms.

The overall project will include the development of new data analytics models, implementing them and automated extraction of details filed with SEBI. Using data analytics, the project will predict market manipulations. It will also work to establish linkages between the stakeholders of the trading market, according to Moneycontrol.

Other companies which have been shortlisted by SEBI are PWC, Capgemini Technology, Decimal Point Analytics, NEC Technologies India, Hewlett Packard (HP) Enterprise. These companies will work with SEBI to enable the market regulator with advanced analytical tools which are powered with new-age technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), big data analytics, pattern recognition, data processing, data mining, and natural language processing, among others.

For this project, SEBI had invited IT companies last November to help implement data analytics in its operations. At that time, SEBI chairman Ajay Tyagi had said that the regulatory body will invest around INR 500 Cr for the data analytics project and a ‘data lake project’ over the next five years.

Moreover, in the annual report 2018-19, SEBI had highlighted that it is going to incorporate data analytics and other new-age technologies to address unethical practices followed on trading platforms. In the report, SEBI had said that it’ll continue to strengthen market supervision capabilities by developing new technology-based solutions for identifying non-compliance and support its investigations.

According to a recent study by Analytics India Magazine (AIM) and Praxis Business School, the data analytics market in India was estimated to be $3.03 Bn in size in 2019 and is projected to grow seven times in the next seven years.

Similar to SEBI’s project, the income tax department had launched Project Insight to curb the circulation of black money using data-analytics technology in 2017.

This project leverages big data analytics to find mismatches between spending pattern and income declaration of taxpayers by surveilling their social media profiles on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The IT department had said that the project will play a crucial role in the widening of the taxpayer base and also to monitor taxpayers as well.