The Securities Board of Nepal (SEBON) has announced that it would operate commodity market next year. The capital market regulator has made the announcement in its Policy and Programmes for the coming Fiscal Year 2021/22, published on Friday through a virtual programme.
The policy and programmes also has the objectives of enhancing the regulatory capacity of the board, developing legal structure for the effective regulation, supervision and management of the securities and commodities markets, enhancing the capacity of the market participants and managing the market risks.
Chairman of the SEBON, Bhisma Raj Dhungana, said that the plans were underway to reform the Nepal Stock Exchange and CDS and Clearing Limited.
The SEBON has the policy to implement automated transaction system for the secondary market of debentures and facilitate the Trade Management Syatem (TMS) broker back office infrastructure. Likewise, it aims to develop fit-and-proper criteria to facilitate the entry of central clearing agency, formulating a draft of Securities Exchange Act and Securities and Commodity Exchange Board of Nepal Act.
Presenting the major elements of the policy and programmes, Deputy Executive Director of the Board, Dr. Nabaraj Adhikari, said that directives for the institutional governance of the securities market operators and market participants would be formulated and implemented in the coming fiscal.
Similarly, a central statistics bank for capital market would be developed, Electronic Reporting and Retrieval System (ERRS) would be made effective and feasibility study would be conducted regarding the establishment of the regional offices of the board.
Nepali capital market has 541 participants including one securities market operator, one central depositary company, 15 mutual funds, 50 share brokers and 30 merchant bankers.
Participation of common investors has witnessed a tidal changes in the past one year as the number of Demat account jumped to 3.5 million by mid-June 2021 from 1.7 million in mid-July 2020.
Similarly, the number of Mero Share accounts has reached 2.6 million in a year from mere 700,000. More than 2 million investors apply for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) – more than four times higher than a year earlier. With the facility of online share/IPO application, common people even from the remote areas are attracted to the share market.
Source : TRN,
