New Delhi, July 29 Stock market regulator SEBI has allowed the current system of pledging of shares with brokers for margins to continue till August 31.
As per a circular, brokers will be able to continue using the Power of Attorney to transfer shares for margin purpose for one more month.
SEBI said that in view of the prevailing situation due to Coivid-19 pandemic, partial lockdowns in various areas of the country, representations were received from the stock brokers and stock broker associations and that the changes to the systems and software development are still under progress.
The Trading Member/CM shall also be allowed to accept client securities as collateral by way of title transfer into the Client Collateral Account as per the present system. The system of parallel acceptance of the client securities by way of title transfer shall be available only up to August 31, 2020 and no further extension shall be granted, SEBI said.
It is reiterated that, in terms of paragraph 12 of the circular dated February 25, 2020, the TM/CM shall be required to close all existing demat accounts tagged as 'Client Margin/Collateral' by August 31, 2020.
SEBI had earlier specified guidelines with regard to margin obligations to be given by way of pledge and re-pledge of shares in the depository system.
SEBI has initiated this move as part of efforts to prevent misuse of such securities.
The SEBI measure comes following the incident at Karvy Stock Broking Ltd (KSBL) incident, to put in place stringent norms to prevent misuse of clients' securities that are available with trading and clearing members.
In November last year, the watchdog barred KSBL from taking new brokerage clients after it was found that the brokerage firm had allegedly misused clients' securities of more than Rs 2,000 crore.
( With inputs from IANS )