An expert panel will meet on July 15 to discuss risk mitigation measures in the derivatives market

An expert panel of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will meet early next week to discuss various measures to mitigate risks in the equity derivatives market, two people familiar with the development said. “The only agenda of the Secondary Market Advisory Committee, which is scheduled to meet on July 15, is to discuss short-term measures for the F&O segment,” said one of the people.

A working group headed by former RBI Executive Director G Padmanabhan has discussed various proposals, including limiting weekly options, increasing lot size of F&O contracts, increasing margin requirements, upfront collection of option premium from option buyers and intra-day monitoring of position limits. said the person.

“The trend we are seeing in the weekly auctions, only on the expiry day, in deals like concentration in the last hour. These are just speculative bets. There is no nature of hedging in this, there is no nature of this. Apart from speculation, the question now is from an investor protection point of view. What needs to be done next,” SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch said in a recent interaction with the media.

According to Sebi data, the overall derivative turnover was ₹210 lakh crore in FY18, which increased to ₹500 lakh crore in FY24, he said, adding that individual investors in index options trade increased from 2% in FY18 to 41% in FY24.