Sebi rolls out validated UPI handles to safeguard investors from cyber frauds

In order to safeguard investors from cyber frauds, the market regulator, Sebi has rolled out a new sub-system of UPI – “Validated UPI handles” have been enabled for securities market, Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Chairman, SEBI said in Kautilya Economic Conclave 2025.

According to the chairman, along with the “SEBI Check” facility, any investor can easily distinguish and verify from his/her mobile phone in seconds whether the bank account which is sought to receive credit for investments is a genuine account of any regulated intermediary or not.

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The market regulator is also actively monitoring Social Media Platforms for misleading, manipulative and illegal contents on social media relating to the securities market and reducing the risk arising out of advices by unregistered finfluencers.

“To protect the funds of investors from being misused by stock brokers, SEBI has introduced a framework by which stock brokers (SBs) and clearing members (CMs) shall upstream all client funds to clearing corporations (CCs),” said Pandey.

He further informed that a unified app for investors has been launched to facilitate investors with a consolidated view of securities across both the depositories eliminating the need for multiple logins. It also provides transaction and holding statements at one place, e-voting facility on company resolutions and access to proxy advisory recommendations.

“We have introduced a facility of voluntary freezing/ blocking of Trading Accounts by Clients (similar to ATM cards), in case they find any suspicious activity in the trading accounts,” said in his speech.

According to a circular by Sebi, the UPI IDs of SEBI-registered investor-facing intermediaries will now carry the exclusive “@valid” handle, issued by NPCI, along with category-specific suffixes. This will enable investors to easily identify legitimate entities.

The handle will feature a unique and exclusive identifier, "@valid", combined with the name of the selfcertified syndicate bank. The new UPI id will also include the special suffix, such as .brk for brokers and .mf for mutual funds, for easy identification of registered intermediary type. (Example: abc.brk@validhdfc; xyz.mf@validicici), the circular said.

Over the past decade, our capital markets have facilitated capital raising of nearly Rs 93 trillion through equity and debt issuances- supporting growth across sectors.

This momentum has only strengthened. In the current financial year, equity issuances have already crossed Rs 1.8 trillion and over 170 IPOs are in the pipeline. On the debt side, corporate bond issuances touched Rs 10 trillion in FY25 and Rs 4.3 trillion in just the first five months of FY26, the chairman said in his speech at Kautilya Economic Conclave 2025.

In terms of participation, the number of unique investors in the securities market has tripled from around 42 million in Mar-2019 to 134 million today. The mutual fund industry’s assets under management have surged from Rs 24 trillion at end of FY19 to over Rs 75 trillion now. The AIF segment, catering to risk capital and alternative investments, has expanded five-fold—with investments rising from Rs 1.1 trillion in Mar-2019 to over Rs 5.7 trillion now in just six years.

The Sebi chairman says that these numbers represent a maturing ecosystem - where businesses can raise funds with confidence and investors trust the long-term growth potential of the country.

The chairman also mentioned some key initiatives taken for the mutual fund segment which includes to facilitate wider investor participation in REITs and InvITs, recently we have expanded the scope of “Strategic Investor” for REITs and InvITs and reclassified REITs as “equity” for investments by mutual funds.

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Secondly, to promote financial inclusion in the mutual funds space, we have revised the incentive structure for distributors for new inflows from B-30 cities and introduced an incentive structure for mutual fund distributors for onboarding first-time women investors. Thirdly, Sebi has reduced the minimum investment threshold for Large Value Funds (LVFs) schemes of AIF from Rs 70 crore to Rs 25 crore to promote higher investor participation.

And lastly, he informed that steps are being taken to promote adoption of accreditation by investors and provide additional relaxations and operational flexibilities to Accredited Investors-only (AI-only) schemes of AIFs.

Under the new products, processes and framework, the Sebi chairman said that to simplify access to passive investing vehicles like index funds and ETFs, we introduced the MF Lite framework - offering streamlined entry norms, lighter compliance, and operational flexibility for passive schemes.

For more sophisticated investors seeking advanced strategies, we introduced Specialized Investment Funds (SIFs) to bridge the gap between mutual funds and PMS. SIFs is expected to encourage innovation in investment strategies while ensuring appropriate safeguards for investor protection and market integrity. To help investors track inactive mutual fund folios, facilitate KYC compliance and reduce fraud risks in inactive folios, we have facilitated the introduction of MITRA platform.

As a closing remark. Pandey said that, “Our collective efforts are focused on further strengthening the corporate bond market, enabling capital formation at scale, and making investments easier and more seamless for investors.”

“We look forward to building a market ecosystem that is more resilient, more inclusive, and aligned with the aspirations of a developed India. We are sure that our markets will not just support India’s growth—they will lead it,” he added.