Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that the Securities And Exhange Board of India must aid in spurring the prescription of KYC (Know Your Customer) norms and simplify related processes in her address at the organisation's 38th foundation day. "SEBI must help drive the prescription of common KYC norms and the simplification and digitalisation of KYC processes across the Indian securities market," Sitharaman said.
She noted that the regulator has the scale of investor participation, depth of digital infrastructure, and the institutional credibility amongs its peer in regulator space to spearhed this endeavour.
"It is the shared responsibility of all stakeholders to ensure that no citizen has to repeat the same verification journey across multiple financial products and platforms. We must all work collectively towards it with a sense of urgency," the Finance Minister stated.
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She drew attention to the need to improve Indian citizens' experience with financial services. Sitharaman called for a seamless, secure, and portable KYC experience spanning across the financial segment. She also stated that the matter was talked over with the regulators at the FSDC (Financial Stability and Development Council).
Sitharaman also spoke about "enabling and deepening" the bond market, saying that it is need for structural reforms across several dimensions which need to be executed concurrently, adding that the markets regulator needs to be the "convening and coordinating force." She said that the markets regulator should undertake a "serious push" for municipal bonds and "build a more effective credit enhancement architecture."
The finance minister noted that SEBI needs be ready to deal with the emerging challenges posed by AI tools, which include the elevated potential risk to cybersecurity.
"These risks can take many forms — automated discovery of system vulnerabilities, malicious source-code interference, attacks aimed at software supply chains and coordinated intrusions that can evolve in real time to evade detection," Sitharaman said.
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