India’s Market Entities Deploy Tech At Amazingly Low Cost Compared To Global Peers: SEBI’s Madhabi Puri-Buch

IT Spending in India’s capital markets is substantially lower compared most of its global peers, according to data by Securities and Exchange Board of India. IT spends by the national regulator is is at least half the spends made by market regulators in major economies such as Australia, Singapore, and United Kingdom, said Madhabi Puri-Buch, Chairperson of Securities and Exchange Board of India while speaking at an SBI Mutual Fund Event on July 19.

Buch was advocating leveraging technology to put innovative products in the market. Market regulator has been advocating sacketisation of products in Mutual Funds space by providing SIP at minimum price point of Rs 250. The regulator is facing some pushback on from some quarters of the industry over viability of such product.

According to the latest annualised data shared by SEBI today, SEBI had spent Rs 93 crores in the India’s IT space during the last fiscal, compared to Rs 205 crores made by Australia’s regulator Australian Securities & Investments Commission, Rs 420 crores by Hong Kong, and the highest Rs 953 crores by United Kingdom.

Not just SEBI, IT spends made by the other National Stock Exchange are also significantly lower than other major stock exchanges across the globe. NSE’s total IT cost for the last fiscal stood at Rs 570 crores, against Rs 737 crores Singapore’s exchange SGX, Rs 1,949 crores made by America’s NASDAQ, and massive Rs 6,807 crores spending by Hong Kong.

Further, amongst central clearing counterparties of major economies across the globe, tech spending by India’s NSE Clearing stood the lowest at Rs 244 crore during FY24, versus Rs 970 crore by OCC, Rs 1,198 crore by UK's LCH, and Rs 1,141 crore by US' ICE during CY 2023 (all on a standalone basis).