SEBI wants AMFI to take up SRO's role

Mumbai, June 20 (UNI) Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is keen to see Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) act as a Self Regulatory Organisation (SRO).

Speaking at the mutual funds summit organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), SEBI chairman M Damodaran said ''AMFI is uniquely positioned to provide regulation and can take up the role of an autonomous body to arm it face with the adverse factors in mutual funds industry.'' ''AMFI had earlier resisted attempts to make it as an SRO. Now, with a revised proposal, which would give more autonomy to the association, I hope AMFI would become the first SRO in the financial industry,'' he said.

Reiterating the need to impart autonomy to the mutual fund body, Mr Damodaran said an autonomous AMFI ''can set up its own mechanisms to deal with the things that were going wrong hitherto.'' SEBI has also plans to put in place a 12 month-long investor education programme, which will be launched by next month.

''By early July, the corpus fund for a National Investor Education Programme would be in place. MF industry is a national ally to take this goal ahead,'' he said.

The market watchdog will convene a meeting of Mutual Fund Trustees soon in order to stress the higher level of responsibility in ensuring participation of more investors in mutual funds.

SEBI is also likely to reveiw regulations for trustees in mutual funds, Mr Damodaran said.

Apart from liquid funds, wherein industrial growth was confined in past decade to a larger extent, he said time is high for funds to explore large funds from corporate houses.

''Something more needs to be done to get more types of money in to mutual funds,'' he added.

UNI