MUMBAI: After deploying an artificial intelligence-based tool to process public documents like Reits and Invits applications faster, the market regulator Sebi now wants to extend the same to process and wet IPO documents with a view to minimising application delays and clearing time.
Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch said Sebi is already employing AI in 80 per cent of its processing work, and she wants to further this by deploying more technology in its operations.
Buch said deploying technology to process IPO papers is to streamline applications so that we can issue approvals at a faster pace. For this to happen, the IPO papers have to be submitted in a template-based format. At the same time, she reassured industry leaders that Sebi focuses on compliance, not minor details like application language.
Recently, Sebi returned IPO filings from several companies, emphasising the country’s global leadership in IPO numbers.
“To minimise IPO application delays and clearing time, we are working to start a template-based fill-in-the-blanks kind of application form that will be processed with the help of artificial intelligence (AI),” she said.
“We have already implemented artificial intelligence (AI) within Sebi for processing of public documents. For instance, a human used to read and see whether the annual report of a Reit or an Invit is in compliance or not, but this is being done by AI now. The officer validates it and does some manual checks, but 80 per cent of the work is done using AI,” Buch told market participants at a FICCI conference here Friday.
The regulator is also working on AI-based processing of IPO documents, with the final approval coming from an officer. “The normal track (of processing of IPO applications) will be so fast that you won’t need fast track,” she said.
To demystify the entire process of IPO filing and make it easier for all the young companies waiting to list, she said the team is working on starting a templatised fill-in-the-blank form, which will make it simpler.
“We need to bring time for clearing applications for capital raises to a minimum,” Buch said while assuring industry leaders that Sebi never rejects an application for reasons like active or passive voice used in the application. IPO applications are rejected when, for example, a director of the merchant banker was allotted shares before the IPO or the merchant banker is under Sebi investigation.
On the role of regulations, she said, “Our regulations keep pace with innovation; otherwise, we will be like policemen in Hindi movies who arrive after the hero and the villain finish fighting, but we need to arrive at some point.”
Elaborating further, she said the Sebi is also in the process of finalising two innovations—a combo product of rights issues and preferential allotment.
