Daijiworld Media Network – Mumbai

Mumbai, Apr 25: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday called for a seamless, secure and portable Know Your Customer (KYC) experience across India’s financial sector, urging the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to take the lead in prescribing common KYC norms.

Speaking at SEBI’s 38th Foundation Day celebration, Sitharaman said Indian citizens should have an improved experience of financial services through simplified and digitised KYC processes.

She said SEBI, given its scale of investor participation, digital infrastructure and institutional credibility, was well placed to drive the initiative, while urging other regulators to work towards it with a sense of urgency.

Highlighting the evolution of Indian financial markets, Sitharaman said challenges had helped build stronger institutions, adding that SEBI embodied that evolution.

She pointed to the regulator’s legal success rates, including over 90 percent in the Supreme Court, 73 percent at the Securities Appellate Tribunal and 92 percent in civil courts, as evidence of institutional strength.

The Finance Minister also noted robust capital market activity during FY25-26, with 366 initial public offerings raising around Rs 1.9 lakh crore.

She said the rise in retail participation, supported by regulatory reforms, represented one of the most significant democratising developments in India’s financial history.

On global coordination, Sitharaman urged SEBI to institutionalise more frequent and substantive consultations with international counterparts and market participants on emerging issues such as cross-border fraud, artificial intelligence in markets, sustainable finance disclosures and settlement interoperability.

She said Indian regulation need not imitate global regulation, but should remain in sustained dialogue with global developments to boost investor confidence and strengthen India’s role in international rule-making.