SEBI asks bourses to make additional disclosures on commodity derivatives segment; daily notification from April 2020

New Delhi: Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on Friday directed stock exchanges to make additional disclosures on their websites with regard to trading in the commodity derivatives segment.

“Stock exchanges shall make the disclosures on a weekly basis for every Wednesday by next Wednesday (and for next trading day in case of holiday on any Wednesday) by October 1, 2019,” SEBI said in a circular.

However, from 1 April, 2020 on wards disclosures would be made on a daily basis by 6 pm on T+1 day, where T refers to the trading day.

According to the regulator, the exchanges need to make disclosures about open interest and turnover for various categories of participants at commodity as well as market level in a prescribed format.

Exchanges need to categorise participants in the six categories — Farmers/FPOs (Farmers Producers Organisations), value chain participants, proprietary traders, domestic financial institutional investors, foreign participants and those who cannot be classified in the five categories to be placed in ‘others’ category.

The categorisation of the clients/members would be made on self-declaration basis for each commodity.

However, exchanges can re-classify any participant where it deems necessary to do so based on the information available with it, SEBI said.

Besides, exchanges need to make disclosure for commodity-wise top participants, members and market-wide position limits.

The disclosures regarding commodity-wise top participant among others, exchanges would need to make it on daily basis, “latest within a month,” the regulator added.

Moreover, exchanges are required to maintain complete historical data of the additional disclosures on their websites in spreadsheet format, the SEBI said.

The recommendations are in line with Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee (CDAC), SEBI added.