SEBI’s AI Tool ‘Pinaka’ To Identify Stock Recommendations On TV Shows

Stock regulatory body Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has developed an AI-based system called Picture-based Information News Accumulator and Key Information Analyser (Pinaka) that will scan various bourses-related television shows and form a database of recommendations made by these shows.

According to the Economic Times report, by introducing Pinaka, SEBI will closely scrutinise stock recommendations made by TV shows thus, will also report any wrongdoings. 

Pinaka’s database will be part of SEBI’s big-data network that the regulatory body will use to conduct inspections for stock market-related offenses. 

Further, Pinaka will scan all major TV shows displaying stock recommendations via programming. After extracting such information, it will convert unstructured data into structured one for surveillance purposes. And, the structured data will be compared with stock trading patterns with the person’s suggestions being used for the TV viewers.  

The development comes a few days after SEBI wrote to the industry body Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) asking to closely monitor social media platforms on a regular basis. 

In the letter, SEBI said, “Mutual funds shall be vigilant and regularly monitor social media to identify entities, or groups, which camouflage themselves as registered mutual funds, or misuse the names of mutual funds, to lure the investors.”

SEBI further directed the industry body to take immediate action against fraudulent entities that impersonate themselves as registered mutual funds to allure investors.

Prior to that, in November, the stock exchange body was planning to introduce rules to govern financial influencers who give out financial advice to netizens on social media platforms.

The stock regulatory body further informed that it was planning to mandate registrations and other norms for financial influencers along with framing rules to govern registered financial advisors.

In March, it conducted several search and seizure operations in India pertaining to an alleged stock manipulation via social media. While in January, it convicted six people for manipulating stock prices through instant messaging apps – Telegram and WhatsApp.

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