The Securities and Exchanges Board of India (SEBI) wants to see more activity in the stock markets, as trading and other activities have slumped due to the COVID-19 pandemic, reported Business Standard. 

While there could be many hindrances although many have taken to online trading, SEBI has now reduced the fee it charges on various counts.

These fee changes become applicable from June and will be in force till March 2021.

The two key areas where the reduction has been effected are broker turnover fees and the fees payable on filing of offer documents. These are usually public issues, rights issues and buyback of shares by companies. Since these are costs borne by investors, the fee reduction will help them save some money.

The reduction of fee for filing offer documents is 50% of the existing fee structure. There has been a virtual drying up of public issues once the lockdown has come into force. SEBI says the issuer will have to pay SEBI a small percentage of the fund raised to it. This constitutes 16% of the Rs 750 crore that the regulator had collected as fees overall. 

Shares buyback by companies has been seen during these lockdown days thanks largely to the steep fall in the stock prices and promoters feeling this is the best opportunity to ramp up their holdings in their respective companies. The buyback norms have already been relaxed for the companies. For initial public offers (IPOs) too, certain relaxations have been announced.