Regulatory reporting requirement: revised half-yearly compliance and investor grievance reports required from merchant bankers to be filed with SEBI.
Merchant bankers must submit a Board-reviewed half-yearly report in a revised electronic format to SEBI detailing regulatory compliance status, investor grievance redressal, deficiencies and corrective measures, pre-issue and post-issue due diligence followed, and track record of past issues; the Compliance Officer shall file the report within three months after each half year and report changes in status or constitution as required.

Mutual funds: SEBI's master circular mandates offer document formats, governance, NAV rules, valuation and disclosure regimes.
The Circular compiles SEBI's operative circulars for mutual funds effective to March 31, 2012, prescribing mandatory formats, filing and update timelines for SID/SAI/KIM, governance and risk-management requirements (audit/valuation committees, systems audit), detailed disclosure and reporting regimes (half-yearly portfolios, NAV publication, CTRs, MCRs), uniform NAV cut-off and time-stamping rules, valuation methodologies for traded/non-traded securities including benchmark and spread matrices, investment restrictions and procedures for conversion/merger/additional plans, and product-specific rules for Fund of Funds, Gold ETFs, capital-protection and foreign investor investment routes.

Regional filing requirements for offer documents: smaller-issue drafts to regional offices, larger-issue filings to head office.
Revises filing locations under the Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements framework: draft offer documents for issues up to a specified threshold must be filed with the regional office having jurisdiction over the issuer's registered office; issues above that threshold must be filed at the regulator's head office. Merchant bankers must submit three copies of draft offer documents and one copy of final offer documents to the designated office. The amendments take effect for draft offer documents filed on or after the specified effective date and are issued under the regulator's statutory powers.

FII debt allocation auctions: monthly schedule with bidding caps, minimum tick and utilisation windows governing allocations.
FII debt limits are to be allocated by monthly auctions on the 20th (or next working day) based on prior month free limits; auctions occur when free limit in a debt category exceeds the prescribed threshold. Bidding runs for two hours under existing SEBI pricing and allocation rules; single entity allocation is limited by a cap or one tenth of free limit, with a fixed minimum bid size and tick. Auctions will alternate between the two principal exchanges, exchanges will govern authentication and multiple bids, custodians remit auction fees to SEBI promptly, and category specific utilisation windows apply as per prior SEBI guidance.

Dematerialisation requirement enables eligible companies with depository connectivity to shift from trade-for-trade to rolling settlement.
Companies with connectivity to both depositories may be moved from Trade for Trade Settlement to Rolling Settlement if at least half of other-than-promoter holdings are dematerialised and certified by the Registrar and Transfer Agent, or by a practicing Company Secretary/Chartered Accountant where no RTA exists, and provided no other grounds justify continuation of TFTS; stock exchanges must report actions taken in Monthly/Quarterly Development Reports.

Investor grievance authentication required: SCORES registration mandatory before listing debt securities, verified by exchanges.
Companies seeking listing of debt securities must obtain SCORES authentication and submit the prescribed form electronically and by hard copy; the same authentication applies to all subsequent debt issues. Stock exchanges must verify SCORES authentication before granting listing approval, inform companies of this requirement at filing, and publish the requirement on their websites. Companies already authenticated need not reapply.

Formats for financial results disclosure updated to align with revised balance sheet presentation, requiring standardized quarterly and year to date reporting.
SEBI has substituted formats under Clause 41 of the Listing Agreement to align interim financial result disclosures with the Revised Schedule VI, prescribing line items and presentation for standalone and consolidated unaudited/audited results, a Part II for shareholding and investor complaints, and a specified statement of assets and liabilities. The amendments require detailed expense classification, disclosure of exceptional and discontinuing operations, EPS presentation, and specified asset and liability groupings; exchanges must incorporate these formats into Listing Agreements and apply them to filings made after the circular.

Centralized KYC registration mandates intermediaries to upload existing clients' KYC to KRA with phased submission and verification.
Intermediaries must upload electronic KYC data of pre-existing clients to the KYC Registration Agency (KRA) system under a phased schedule, submit supporting documents (initially scanned copies with originals retained, originals to follow by the final deadline), and indicate account opening/activation/updation dates. KRAs shall update records, acknowledge clients, categorize records as existing clients and flag missing information. Intermediaries downloading client KYC must update missing data, perform IPV if required, and send supporting documents to the KRA; exchanges, depositories and boards must monitor and report compliance.

PAN as sole identification mandates KYC compliance, restricts credits to nonverified demat accounts and strengthens demat safeguards.
The Master Circular consolidates SEBI directions prescribing PAN as the primary identification for BO accounts with alternative PoI/PoA and narrow exemptions, mandates DP verification and customer due diligence, forbids specified account opening and custody charges, requires pro rata refund of prepaid AMC on transfer/closure, restricts credits to PAN noncompliant accounts, and prescribes timelines, penalties and operational safeguards for transfer, settlement (T+2 schedule), DIS handling, grievance disclosures and preservation of records.

Consolidation of regulatory circulars: master circular for stock exchanges consolidating trading, settlement, and risk management guidance.
Consolidation of regulatory circulars establishes a SEBI master circular compiling circulars applicable to the stock exchange cash market up to the compilation cut-off, effective from its date of issue and addressed to all stock exchanges. The circular is organized into annexures covering trading (Part I and Part II), settlement procedures, a comprehensive risk management framework, and transitional guidance for companies shifted from trade-for-trade to rolling settlement.

Business continuity and disaster recovery required for exchanges and depositories, including strict recovery objectives and mandatory regular drills.
Stock exchanges and depositories must implement BCP and DR arrangements including a geographically separate Disaster Recovery Site and, for exchanges, a Near Site to achieve zero data loss; DRS/NS must mirror the Primary Data Centre in hardware, software, network and security, ensure high availability and no single point of failure, meet specified recovery objectives, use synchronous replication between PDC and NS, and maintain adequately trained personnel. Quarterly DR drills simulating live operations, documented results reviewed by the Governing Board and included in the annual system audit are mandatory, and a Board approved BCP DR policy must be submitted to the regulator within three months.

SCORES authentication requirement: companies must register on SEBI's complaints portal before receiving listing approval from exchanges.
Mandates companies and equity listing applicants to obtain authentication on the SCORES centralized complaints portal prior to receiving Listing Approval from the stock exchange; exchanges must ensure this pre listing compliance to facilitate online processing of investor complaints.

Allocation of debt limits to foreign institutional investors via electronic auction with per-entity caps and minimum bids.
Unutilized debt investment limits are allocated to foreign institutional investors via electronic auctions for Government Debt (Old), Government Debt (Long Term) and Corporate Debt (Old); each category has a prescribed per-entity maximum allocation and a minimum bid of one crore, with the same cap applying when a single entity bids on behalf of multiple FIIs. Custodians must remit bidding fees to the regulator within three working days and notify their FII clients of the auction and conditions.

Promoter dematerialisation requirement exemptions permit specific cases and require stock exchange approval upon documentary evidence and implementation.
Specified narrow exemptions to the promoter dematerialisation obligation include: physical-mode sales not lodged for transfer; shareholdings that are sub judice; inability to convert due to a promoter's death; and short pendency in listing approval or conversion for newly allotted shares. Companies must apply to stock exchanges with documentary evidence; exchanges must implement systems, publish guidance, amend bye laws, disseminate the circular and report implementation.

Algorithmic trading risk controls required, with exchanges and brokers mandated to implement order-level checks and monitoring to ensure market integrity.
Regulatory guidelines require exchanges and brokers to implement comprehensive risk controls, monitoring and reporting for algorithmic trading: exchanges must ensure system capacity, surveillance upgrades, economic disincentives for high order-to-trade ratios, routing through Indian broker servers, clock synchronization, and the ability to identify and disable dysfunctional algos; brokers must obtain exchange permission, pass conformance tests, implement price, quantity, order-value and cumulative open order value checks, automated execution safeguards, unique order tagging, maintain logs, safeguard algos, and undergo certified system audits.

Regulatory reporting obligations: Bankers to an Issue must submit revised half yearly compliance reports and Board reviewed corrective plans.
SEBI mandates half yearly electronic (excel) reports by Bankers to an Issue in a revised annexure covering regulatory compliance and investor grievance redressal, effective for the half year ending March 2012 and superseding prior circulars. The Board of directors must review and record deficiencies and corrective measures. The Compliance Officer must submit the excel report to SEBI at the designated email within three months of the half year's end; changes in BTI status or constitution are included in the format.

Allocation cap limits FII bidding for corporate and government long-term debt; custodians must remit bidding fees promptly.
Allocation of unutilized foreign investment limits in corporate debt and Government Debt long-term categories will be conducted via a timed bidding process on the exchange, subject to modifications: a per-entity allocation cap in each category, a specified minimum bid amount in each category, and an obligation on custodians to remit bidding fees to SEBI within three working days and notify their FII clients.

OTC trade settlement in commercial paper and certificates of deposit required through central clearing, subject to clearing norms and reporting.
All SEBI-regulated entities must settle OTC trades in commercial paper and certificates of deposit through central clearing and settlement arrangements; such transactions will be governed by the operational and risk management clearing and settlement norms specified by the designated clearing corporations and must comply with existing reporting obligations.

Applicability of SEBI rating norms: credit rating agencies must apply matching process, disclosure and conflict of interest standards to non regulated ratings.
CRAs rating instruments or loans not regulated by the securities regulator must comply with the same requirements as for public-issue ratings, including rating process and methodology, records maintenance, transparency and disclosures, avoidance of conflict of interest, and code of conduct. The prescribed half-yearly internal audit must also cover such ratings, ensuring consistent regulatory standards across ratings used by other regulators or regulated entities.

Due diligence and conflict of interest rules require separate fund managers and mandated portfolio replication with public return disclosures.
AMCs must retain sole responsibility for distributor due diligence and may only take agency assistance; they must appoint separate fund managers for distinct funds unless investment objectives, asset allocation and portfolio replication are the same. A minimum 70% portfolio replication is acceptable where a written trade allocation policy exists and managers avoid directionally opposite positions. AMCs must disclose the manager's returns for all schemes on their websites monthly, include those returns in any performance advertisement, and report plus explain significant inter-scheme return differences to trustees and on their website.