Money Mazics

Many a changes are taking place in various fields of financial sector viz. insurance, banking and capital markets with all the Regulators trying to streamline the currents procedures and systems. All the changes that are introduced have an impact on the investment procedures and existing investments. There are some recent changes by Regulators which can affect your investments in following sectors:

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has standardised the documentary procedure for transfer of securities from a deceased person's account to that of the surviving joint holder, nominee or legal heir to make the process investor friendly. Also, the regulator has raised the threshold for such transactions in demat format to Rs 5 lakh. Earlier, the limit was Rs 1 lakh. The timeline for processing the transmission requests for securities held in dematerialized and physical mode would be 7 days and 21 days respectively, after receipt of the prescribed documents. 

The insurance regulator has informed insurers that the recently operationalised electronic know-your-customer, or E-KYC, services by the Unique Identification. Authority of India (UIDAI) will be accepted as valid and sufficient proof of identity and address for insurance. The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority has also issued a similar circular which states that the letter issued by the UIDAI will be accepted as a valid KYC proof. 

The pension regulator has slightly modified the exit guidelines under the National Pension System (NPS). It will now provide an option to withdraw the entire accumulated pension wealth if the amount is not more than Rs 2 lakh at the time of superannuation for government employees, or upon attaining the age of 60 years for subscribers falling under the 'All citizen model and Corporate model'. This facility, would not be available to subscribers of the NPS Lite Scheme.

Keep these changes in mind when making an investment decision.