SEBI removes curbs on P-Notes ,RBI cuts CRR by 50 bps

Alert:Wall Street tumbles; Dow falls below 10000
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SEBI removes curbs on P-Notes
Sebi lifts curbs on P-Notes
P-note norms revised; no cap in ODIs
SEBI removes restrictions on P-Notes

ET:
The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Monday did a U-turn by doing away with the restrictions on issue of participatory notes by fore
ign institutional investors against securities, including derivatives, as underlying.
The move seems aimed at reversing the foreign fund outflows in recent times due to the credit crisis in the US and spread to Europe. The decision, as SEBI chief CB Bhave put it, was in view of the current market conditions. Bombay Stock Exchange’s today closed below the 12,000 mark. The 30-share index shed 724.62 points or 5.78 per cent to close at 11,801.70, but off the low of 11,732.97. National Stock Exchange’s 50-share Nifty settled at 3602.35, sharply down 215.95 points or 5.66 per cent from the previous day’s close. In October last year, the markets regulator had put a 40 per cent cap on FIIs’ total asset holding via participatory notes or overseas derivatives instruments and stopped them from issuing fresh P-notes or renewal of old ones. SEBI had given FIIs an 18-month deadline ending in March 2009 to do the needful. The moved was aimed to keep track of foreign flows into the country. However, the market regulator’s decision to scrap the restriction on P-notes holding can be debated in times when the world markets are faced with a liquidity crisis and plumbing lows. There could only be a short-term bounce back and a long-term benefit for the market, say marketmen. There could hardly be any major trend reversal in the market as FIIs are pulling out persistently from the emerging market like India, on the worries that most of the major economies heading towards recession following the liquidity crunch, said a senior official with a global investment firm. “However, the move is positive for long-term but in this environment we don't think any major positive change in the domestic market until and unless global crisis settles down.” According to Amitabh Chakraborty, president-equity, Religare Securities, “This should be a positive for the market, although majority of the FIIs are way below the 40% limit today, and hence sufficient headroom already exists for FII investment through the P-note route. FII eligibility criteria remain unchanged.” “We believe that a short term bounce back is likely, as the US is in an oversold zone and a sharp relief rally is possible there, but we remain cautious. While a short term spike of 10 to 15 percent in Sensex can't be ruled out, we are seeing market bottoming out at about 9000-10000, given our Sensex earnings estimates of 10-12% in FY2009 and historically market had bottomed out at about 9-10x forward earnings,” Chakraborty said of the markets. However, Anand Tandon, director of equities, Brics Securities, was sceptical about the SEBI move having any great impact on the markets, “One thing you need to understand that global situation is the dominant factor now. The impact of removing restrictions on overseas derivative instruments would be virtually a muted one considering the unprecedented global financial crisis. It seems to be pertinent move considering the current market situation, but I doubt that it would trigger massive inflows of FIIs. Though it signals of almost an ‘all-norms-relaxed’ move, the situation in the US is still gloomy and impact of which cannot be ruled out the domestic market movement,” Tandon said. The market’s fall from 21206.77 on Jan 10 this year started with trouble brewing in the US following defaults on home loans or the sub-prime crisis and spreading to financial institutions having exposure to this market. G Venkatramani, executive director, Nextgen Capital, said, “This could trigger a short-term recovery in the market but would not hold the downtrend for a long as the global markets are still wobbling with negative vibes though the domestic fundamentals are still sound.” According to Euromax Capital Services, “As the asset value has been falling sharply, this 40 per cent is really very less for the market. Thus, SEBI's move should be taken as a positive one, but a greater impact is less possible due to meagre liquidity in the system.”
SEBI revises P-note norms; lifts 40% cap in ODIs

Sebi revises P-note norms, scraps ODI restrictions

The Sebi Board met today in the backdrop of the global financial turbulence. The meeting took stock of the impact of the turbulence on the Indian capital markets and evolve suitable policy responses.
CB Bhave, Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), said norms on participatory notes have been revised and the limit on overseas-derivative instruments (ODIs) in both cash and derivates will be removed. “The 40% cap on assets under custody in cash market will be removed,” he said.
Earlier, in October 2007, the Sebi had banned fresh issue of P-Notes by FIIs. This was done to check the significant flow of foreign funds into the Indian stock markets. The excess liquidity was difficult for the financial market regulators to handle.

Here is a verbatim transcript of CB Bhave's address to media persons. Also see the accompanying video.

We had received a lot of feedback from various stakeholders. The Board considered all the views that had been received as well as the proposal that we had put up. It has been decided that the SME exchange can be either in the form of a new exchange, or an exchange trading platform of an existing exchange, and that there will be competition in this area. So, it is not going to be one exchange that would be licensed by us to be set up as an SME exchange.

The board also decided that the eligibility criteria would be made public by us. Then the exchange, which is newly setup for this purpose, or an exchange that is proposing to setup an existing exchange, which is proposing to set up a platform, can apply and Sebi will then consider those applications.

The board also considered the issue of norms that we have laid down for shareholding by individual shareholders in the demutualised stock exchanges. Again a discussion paper on this was put out by Sebi. As you are all aware the proposal in that discussion paper was to enhance this limit from 5% to 15% for some category of shareholders.

So, the board approved this limit from 5% to 15% for six categories i.e. public financial institutions, stock exchanges, depositories, clearing corporations, banks, and insurance companies.

It also discussed the issue of the entire framework that governs the participation in our markets by what we call FIIs, or foreign institutional investors. The board was of the view that the entire structure needs a comprehensive review. For this purpose, it was decided that we will put out a policy paper, which will be in the public domain for receiving comments from people.

The board also reviewed the decisions of October 2007 with regard to the offshore derivative instruments, or Participatory Notes as they are popularly called. It was decided at that time that these decisions would be subsequently reviewed on the basis of the data that we receive.

On the basis of this review, the board decided that the restrictions on ODIs on derivatives will be removed. Also, the restrictions on having only 40% ODI in the cash investments will also be removed. So, both restrictions that were put for offshore derivative instruments have been decided to be removed. They are no longer applicable.

The board in October 2007 had also decided that we will expedite the process of registering FIIs and sub-accounts so that people come and directly register here in the Indian market. It reviewed that position as well and it was reported to the board that during the last 11 months – October 31, 2007 till now – 397 FIIs and 1,160 sub-accounts have been registered. So, we found that that process is going on smoothly.

These were three important decisions that were taken in the meeting today.

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RBI cuts cash reserve ratio by 50 basis points
CRR cut by 50 bps; Bankers don't see cheap loans soon
RBI cuts CRR by 0.5%
Industry hails CRR cut
RBI cuts CRR by 50 bps to 8.5%
RBI cuts CRR by 50 bps to 8.5%, effective October 11

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank on Monday slashed by 0.50 per cent the rate of mandatory deposits that banks need to keep with it to ease the tight liquidity position, a move that may induce banks to lower commercial lending rates. The new Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) of 8.5 per cent will be effective from October 11 and would unlock about Rs 20,000 crore into the banking system, RBI said. This is the first time in almost three years that the bank has relaxed its tight monetary policy stance that it had adopted to contain inflation. The move, which comes in the backdrop of inflation easing below 12 per cent and outflow of foreign capital, is aimed at infusing more funds in the financial system.

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