ETFs & Funds
Home›ETFs & Funds›Fund Industry›Sebi replaces specialized investment fund exam and rem…
Sebi replaces specialized investment fund exam and removes currency derivatives
The regulator suspended the prior certification from 21 September and will use a new NISM exam that is intended to focus on SIF-relevant material.
India's market regulator Sebi has replaced the certification exam used by mutual fund distributors for specialized investment funds, after industry feedback that the prior test was too difficult and included irrelevant topics. LiveMint Markets reports that in a Tuesday circular, Sebi operationalised a new exam format through the National Institute of Securities Markets, or NISM, and moved away from the previous NISM Series XIII common derivatives certification.
Under the change, the existing exam will be suspended from 21 September and replaced with the NISM-Series-V-D: Mutual Fund - Specialized Investment Fund Distributors Certification. The prior NISM Series XIII exam included three sections, currency derivatives, equity derivatives, and interest rate derivatives, while the new approach is designed to better align testing with the specialized investment fund products distributors sell.
SIFs are intended to bridge retail mutual funds and portfolio management services for higher-risk investors, according to the report. The minimum ticket size is ₹10 lakh for SIFs, compared with ₹50 lakh for portfolio management services, and Sebi has allowed asset management companies to launch SIFs in seven strategies, including Equity Long Short Fund and Debt Long-Short Fund.
The difficulty of the older exam also contributed to malpractice in the distribution channel, with the outlet citing reports of distributors allowing unqualified sub-brokers to sell SIFs amid a shortage of approved sellers. The new certification is intended to let distributors sell both SIFs and mutual funds, reducing their overall testing burden.