The Securities and Exchange Board of India is reviewing the regulatory frameworks governing initial public offerings, follow-on public offerings, and small and medium enterprise listings as part of proposed changes to fundraising rules, according to remarks delivered by SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey at the NDTV Profit Ignite conference on Wednesday. The regulatory review seeks to simplify disclosure documentation for retail investors, establish independent oversight mechanisms for capital proceeds, and streamline listing costs for emerging businesses across the SME segment and Innovators Growth Platform. Pandey said India led the world in the number of public listings in 2025 and emphasized that capital markets could accommodate a wider universe of issuing companies.
A central reform pillar focuses on making prospectus disclosures clearer and more accessible to individual market participants. Pandey discussed stronger monitoring of how issuers use proceeds, including third-party oversight and exchange reporting; specific measures remain subject to regulatory development. Pandey proposed that industrial bodies and regional commercial chambers actively partner with the regulator to identify promising private businesses and prepare their governance structures for public market listings. The initiative complements an earlier regulatory extension allowing equity issuers to modify issue sizes without triggering additional compliance obligations until March 2027.
India's equity market capitalization stood at approximately Rs 470 lakh crore alongside mutual fund industry assets of about Rs 83 lakh crore, serving over 15 crore unique registered investors, according to NDTV Profit.
Beginning November 1, direct mutual fund plans will serve as the default option on digital platforms of asset management companies as the lower-cost version of identical schemes, according to NDTV Profit.
In the small and medium enterprise space, the regulator is evaluating structural adjustments to decrease public issuance expenses, modernize corporate categorization thresholds, and enhance secondary trading liquidity. The chairman voiced specific concerns regarding inactive corporate entities that remain traded despite demonstrating negligible commercial operations, warning that such dormant listings frequently function as shell entities that jeopardize financial market integrity. SEBI is examining options for dealing with inactive listed entities; any delisting would be subject to applicable procedures.
The policy overhaul reflects four foundational regulatory priorities: regulatory simplification, capital market deepening, investor governance protection, and the integration of artificial intelligence in market surveillance. The regulator is expanding supervisory automation through its Radar digital monitoring platform and testing predictive analytical tools to identify early indicators of corporate debt defaults across rating agency and trustee filings. Primary market momentum remained elevated in 2026, with 294 enterprises listing shares across mainboard and SME platforms, following 376 public debuts in 2025, with quarterly fundraising touching nearly 10 billion dollars between July and September.
