Sebi’s ‘Valid UPI’ initiative rollout sees hiccups

The Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (Sebi’s) initiative to introduce “Valid” UPI handles for market intermediaries from October 1 is running into operational hurdles, with a large number of research analysts and investment advisors yet to secure their handles.

- KHUSHBOO TIWARI

In June, Sebi mandated a new UPI format with the suffix “@valid” for all registered intermediaries to prevent fraud and impersonation. The initiative is aimed at ensuring that investors transfer funds only to authorised entities, since banks will issue the handles exclusively to intermediaries verified on Sebi’s system.

Several intermediaries have flagged issues such as: Mismatches between names on Sebi’s Intermediary Portal (SI Portal) and bank records, limited awareness among bank staff about the process, and absence of several banks from the approved list.

“Our entity’s name is different on Sebi’s Intermediary Portal. Since banks verify names from that portal before issuing handles, our application is stuck. We have raised this with Sebi,” a research analyst told Business Standard.