Sebi extends deadline for filing details of non-convertible securities

Capital markets regulator Sebi on Monday extended the timeline by one month to October-end for entering the details of the existing outstanding non-convertible securities in the security and covenant monitoring system hosted by depositories.

Earlier, this was to be complied by September 30.

The regulator, in August 2021, asked depositories to use blockchain technology to record and monitor security creation as well as covenants of non-convertible securities.

The extension comes after Sebi received representations from depositories that issuers have requested for extension in the timeline of entering such legacy data.

On consideration, it has been decided to provide an extension of one month, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a circular.

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"For existing outstanding non-convertible securities, issuers shall ensure that they enter the details into the DLT system on or before October 31, 2022; DTs (Debenture Trustees) shall verify the same by December 31, 2022," it added.

Sebi, in March this year, issued the operational guidelines for security and covenant monitoring using Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) or blockchain technology.

As the backbone of the DLT system would be uniqueness of assets recorded in the system, a unique identifier (asset ID) would be allotted for each asset offered by an issuer as security for the non-convertible securities.

For data exchange and verification across depositories, format for unique asset ID would be a 12-digit alphanumeric string.

The DLT system would provide an alert to the issuer and the DT by having appropriate validation or duplicate checks in the system for identifying possible duplicate entries for assets of an issuer.

Under this, certain assets need to be tracked at portfolio level and no specific parameters for the underlying assets would be captured. It include movable assets such as furniture and equipment, and current assets like portfolio of advances/ receivables.