Sebi investor corpus swells, but spending stagnates

The growing fund-spending gap has renewed calls for a shift to outcome-based deployment

- Neha Joshi

Minuscule direct spending from the market regulator's swelling corpus meant for investor education and protection has triggered calls for a sharp shift in strategy, particularly targeting first-time investors and countering misinformation from financial influencers.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India's (Sebi) Investor Protection and Education Fund (IPEF) saw its corpus jump nearly 43% in FY25, from ₹533 crore in FY24 to ₹761 crore. Yet, direct deployment remained stagnant at ₹2.7 crore. This growing gulf between the fund's size and spending has renewed calls for Sebi to shift from event-led awareness drives to outcome-focused deployment.

A Sebi official, however, pointed out that the regulator also spends money on investor initiatives via market infrastructure institutions such as stock exchanges and depositories—which isn't reflected in its annual report.

Abhiraj Arora, a former Sebi official and a partner at Saraf and Partners, revealed that spending decisions rest with a committee inside Sebi.