SEBI Is Taking The Complaints By The Investors Seriously

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) recently is planning to incorporate an agency in order to process and maintain records of investor complaints received through the regulator.

The obligation for the agency is to receive the complaints made from the investors by means of physical or electronic mode and categorize them.

Then again the agency shall also be liable for tracking grievances' status online as well as carry out follow-ups, besides making Action Taken Reports (ATRs) and also updating the status of complaints on SEBI’s online platform for grievances, recognized as SCORES.

SEBI Complaints Redress System (SCORES) function is to register and track complaints from the investor against listed entities or intermediaries, and this is a web-based and centralized grievance system which has been established by the markets watchdog SEBI.

In a notice, the regulator had invited applications in set format for pre-qualification of agencies for processing as well as maintenance of records of investor grievances received at SEBI.

The scope of work also consists of dispatching grievances towards intermediaries or corporations as well as mail acknowledgement letters towards the investors.

Moreover, the selected agency shall be liable for proper storage facility of the grievances received as well as the Action Taken Reports (ATRs) for 2 years and any additional work relating to investor awareness and education along with investor grievance redressal.

However, in order to state the eligibility criteria, SEBI held that the agency is required to have know-how in the field of handling registrar as well as transfer activities or depository services or have an expertise of handling investor matters. The agency must provide similar services towards public sector undertakings, public sector banks, financial institutions and listed corporations, among others.

The annual average turnover of the contractor is required to be minimum Rs 50 lakh during the earlier 3 years and must not have incurred any loss in 2 consecutive years during the past 5 years ended in March 2019.
The regulator stated that the interested agencies could submit their application till 3rd December 

What is SCORE (SEBI Complaints Redress System)?

SCORES is basically a web-based centralized grievance redress system set up by SEBI. SCORES allows the investors to lodge and follow up their grievances and track the status of redressal of such grievances online from the SCORE website. This permits the market intermediaries as well as listed corporations towards receiving the grievances online from investors, redresses such grievances and report redressal online. However, the activities starting from the lodging of a grievance till its closure through SEBI shall be done online in an automated setting and the person making the complaint could view the status of his grievance online. An investor, who is not acquainted with SCORES or doesn’t have access to SCORES, could be able to lodge grievances in physical form at any of the registered offices of SEBI. Such grievances shall be scanned and also be uploaded in SCORES for processing.

What types of grievances could be registered in SCORE portal?

•    The entities against which grievances are handled through SEBI consist of:

•    Listed corporations/registrar and transfer agents

•    Brokers/stock exchanges

•    Depository participants or depository

•    Mutual funds

•    Portfolio Managers

•    Other entities (such as KYC Collective investment scheme, Merchant banker, Credit rating, Foreign institutional investor etc)

What types of grievances shall not be registered in the SCORE portal?

•    The grievances made by Bank deposits and banking; fixed deposits with nonbanking financial companies (NBFCs) and additional matters relating to NBFCs. - RESERVE BANK OF INDIA (RBI)

•    Fixed deposits with manufacturing corporations; unlisted firms; mismanagement of corporations, financial performance of the corporation, annual general meeting, annual report, interest of the minority shareholders', non-receipt of preferential allotment shares; corporate actions according to the court order, for example mergers, amalgamation, reduction of share capital/par value, etc. - MINISTRY OF CORPORATE AFFAIRS

•    Insurance corporations / brokers / agents / goods and services. - INSURANCE REGULATORY AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY ( IRDA)

•    Commodities - FORWARD MARKETS COMMISSION

•    Pension amount - PENSION FUND REGULATORY AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (PFRDA)

•    Monopoly and anti-competitive actions - COMPETITION COMMISSION OF INDIA (CCI)

•    Housing finance firms - NATIONAL HOUSING BANK

Before raising a grievance in SCORE, the investor must first approach the concerned firm or intermediary against whom there is a grievance. If the grievance is not addressed reasonably, then the user could register the grievance with 

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eStartIndia Team