Emphasising all efforts will be taken to boost investor sentiment, SEBI Chairman U. K. Sinha today said some measures that need regulatory amendments will be announced in the next few days.
“A few measures, which need amending of our regulations, will be issued in the next few days and will be effective from October 1,” SEBI Chairman Sinha told presspersons here.
He was speaking at the launch of the National Stock Exchange’s platform for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
According to him, the measures include those related to fungibility and exit load for mutual funds.
The SEBI board, at its meeting on August 16, had decided to initiate a slew of steps, including ways to boost the mutual funds industry, as part of efforts to bolster the overall market sentiment.
“Our efforts would be to ensure that there is more depth in the market and more investors come in,” he said.
Sinha stressed that while the confidence of investors should be boosted, it should also be ensured that the market is not manipulated. “We should watch markets carefully so that the interest of retail investors is not compromised,” he added.
On September 13, the market regulator announced many measures, one of which was that mutual funds can charge up to 30 percentage points of additional TER (Total Expense Ratio) — a fee charged to investors for MF investments under fund management and other heads — if the new inflows from beyond the top 15 cities are at least 30 per cent of gross new inflows in the scheme or 15 per cent of the average assets under management (year to date), whichever is higher.
SEBI has asked MFs to provide a separate plan for direct investments (investments not routed through the distributor) in existing as well as new schemes.
Such separate plans shall have a lower expense ratio, excluding distribution expenses and commission, and no commission shall be paid from such plans.
The regulator’s directive for direct MF investments would be effective from January 1, 2013, while all other measures would come into effect from next month or October 1, 2012.