Kolkata: SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey on Saturday said the regulator is strengthening investor protection amid the rapid expansion of India’s capital markets, with a focus on tackling misleading investment advice on social media, unrealistic return promises and sophisticated digital frauds.
Addressing the Bharat Chamber of Commerce members at the launch of a new investor forum, Pandey said the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is continuously working to make capital markets more accessible, efficient and resilient, with a core approach focused on facilitating capital formation, improving ease of doing business and strengthening investor protection.
“While we continue to strengthen markets for businesses, an equally important priority is investor protection. World-class markets must be not only efficient during normal times, but also resilient during periods of stress,” he said.
Cautioning that wider market participation also brings greater responsibility, Pandey said opening an investment account had become easier, but understanding investment risks still required knowledge, care and sound judgement.
Investors must be wary of unrealistic return promises, misleading social media advice and increasingly sophisticated digital frauds, he said, adding that investment decisions should be aligned with financial goals and risk appetite.
Listing measures to make investing safer, the SEBI chairman said validated UPI handles and the SEBI Check facility help investors verify payment details of genuine registered intermediaries, reducing the risk of transferring funds to fraudsters.
The regulator has also strengthened grievance-redressal mechanisms through platforms such as SCORES 2.0 and online dispute resolution, while the MITRA platform helps investors identify inactive and unclaimed mutual fund folios, he said.
SEBI is also taking action against misleading investment-related content and inappropriate associations between regulated entities and unregistered persons offering investment advice, Pandey said.
Emphasising the importance of financial literacy, he said over 41,000 investor-awareness programmes were conducted during FY26 in collaboration with stock exchanges and depositories, reaching more than 22 lakh participants. SEBI has also launched Project Jagrook under the campaign ‘Samajh Se Investing Simple’ to promote informed investment decisions.
On market expansion, Pandey said India’s market capitalisation had grown at around 17 per cent annually over the past decade, while companies raised, on average, more than Rs 10 lakh crore annually through equity and debt issuances. The number of unique investors in the securities market has increased fourfold since FY19 to over 15 crore.
Focusing on regional growth, he said West Bengal’s participation in the securities market had expanded considerably, with the number of investors increasing from around 12 lakh in FY15 to over 90 lakh currently, around 36 per cent of whom are below 30 years of age.
Additionally, more than 40 SMEs from the state have accessed capital markets and raised over Rs 1,400 crore through SME IPOs. The state has 379 listed companies with registered offices in West Bengal.
To reduce compliance burdens and improve operational efficiency, SEBI has taken several steps to simplify fundraising, including streamlining IPO processes, shortening rights issue timelines, rationalising listing requirements for large issuers and allowing certain employee stock options to be retained after listing under prescribed conditions.
On the debt side, the regulator has reduced listing timelines for public issues, enabled debt securities with lower face values and relaxed mandatory merchant banker requirements for eligible issuers undertaking private placements.
Pandey said the real measure of world-class capital markets was not merely higher market capitalisation, larger trading volumes or faster transactions, but how effectively they connected household savings with productive investment, supported businesses in raising capital and enabled investors to participate in economic growth.
