Merchant bankers, 10 others to get permanent registration: Sebi

New Delhi: In order to facilitate ease of doing business, Sebi has notified rules to provide permanent registration to merchant bankers, investment advisers, research analysts and eight other categories of market intermediaries.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) already gives permanent registration to stock brokers and sub-brokers subject to their compliance with certain requirements.

The proposal to grant permanent registration to 11 more categories of market intermediaries follows an approval by Sebi in its board meeting in September.

Apart from merchant bankers and investment advisers, permanent registration would be granted to registrar to an issue and share transfer agent, bankers to an issue, underwriters, credit rating agencies and debenture trustees.

The facility has also been extended to depository participants, KYC registration agencies, portfolio managers and research analysts. The decision will help in facilitating ease of doing business for market intermediaries.

For registration of market intermediaries, the regulator has a two-step process. Initially, registration is given for a three to five years before giving the permanent one.

With regard to merchant bankers, Sebi said that it can reject the application after giving an opportunity of being heard in case an application for registration does not satisfy the criteria set out by the regulator.

"The refusal to grant registration, shall be communicated by the board within 30 days of such refusal to the applicant stating therein the grounds on which the application has been rejected," Sebi said in a notification.