An industry chamber has demanded changes in the guidelines of Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for easy creation of more stock exchanges to bring in greater competition in capital markets through wider participation of SMEs and retailers.

ASSOCHAM said the new exchanges would also ensure better price discovery to investors, specifically retail investors, with much lesser transaction costs.

In a representation to Competition Commission of India, the chamber pointed out that the present position in the country is ‘very dismal’ as regards to competition and ‘highly favoured and weighing’ for National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The NSE, which commands 98 per cent of turnover in futures and options and has about 70 per cent in cash section, needs to be countered with competition, it said.

According to the business body, the ‘various reformative steps’ taken by SEBI in the last few years have ‘not been able to bring value competition’ in the market which has resulted in almost ‘monopolistic status’ of NSE.

The industry body has suggested that the regional stock exchanges should be encouraged with fiscal benefits to attract regional companies for listing with a view to better price discovery and lower charges to investors.

The fiscal benefits can be in the form of concessional security transaction tax, exemptions from VAT as also income-tax, it added.

UNI