SEBI announces ideathon Manthan to promote innovation in the securities market

: SEBI in association with the other market infrastructure institutions & QRTAs, has announced the launch of ‘Manthan’, an Ideathon for supporting new ideas and innovations in the securities market. The Ideathon was formally launched by Ms. Madhabi Puri Buch Chairperson, SEBI, at a function held in Mumbai on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.

Launching the Ideathon, Ms. Buch highlighted that adoption of Financial Technology (FinTech) in the securities market presents significant opportunities for stakeholders.

Adoption of FinTech can go a long way in democratizing financial services, making services cheaper and more accessible to the masses, thereby laying the corner stone for financial inclusion. Similarly, Regulatory Technology (RegTech) and Supervisory Technology (SupTech) present opportunities to have effective regulation of the market while lowering the cost of compliance for the market participants. Ms. Buch pointed out that, backed by a rich tradition of entrepreneurship and innovation, India is well positioned to leverage technology in the securities market, to deliver customised solutions at very low costs, to individuals even in the nooks and corners of our country.

SEBI has already facilitated the market and innovators to explore new ideas through the sandbox framework, which provides access to various test environments. Ideathon is another step in this direction. Ms. Buch stated that the focus of Manthan is on ideation, that it is SEBI’s belief that every single idea is worth evaluating – participants are encouraged to bring out any idea, even those which may not be achievable immediately.

SEBI Whole time Members, Executive Directors, various SEBI committee members and officials from the Market Infrastructure Institutions (MIIs) and QRTAs also attended the launch event and expressed their optimism on the role that Ideathons and Hackathons can play in fostering innovation.

More about Manthan and Who can Participate

Manthan is a 6-week long Ideathon by SEBI in association with BSE, NSE, NSDL, CDSL, KFintech, CAMS, Link Intime and MCX to promote innovation in the securities market. Manthan will facilitate the creation of a pool of ideas and innovative solutions revolving around the securities market. Going forward, workable ideas emanating from Manthan may translate into possibilities and prototypes through a Hackathon.

Anyone over 16 years of age, students, startup founders, professionals from any field, can participate by submitting their ideas here. The event is open for registration from March 30, 2022 to May 14, 2022.

Registered participants need to submit their ideas in a video format, not more than five minutes in length. Each entry will be evaluated by an esteemed jury on criteria such as completeness, viability, functionality, originality and impact.

As part of the Ideathon, interactive knowledge sharing sessions will be organized for registered participants through webinars to facilitate the submission of strong and truly innovative ideas. Top 10 winners of the Ideathon stand to win cash prizes worth a total of INR 5,00,000.

Key Themes for Manthan

The key themes for Manthan have been chosen to promote /ensure a healthy and safe growth environment for investors and to keep up the spirit of the Government’s thrust towards digitally empowered society and knowledge economy.

The themes are:

• Investor Education, Protection and ease of investing: The focus of this theme is on fraud prevention, investor education and inclusive growth through product innovation
• Securities Market Development: While securities market investment is one of the oldest forms of retail investment products, Manthan invites ideas that revolve around use of technology to support product innovation, increasing access to new customers and in the commodities markets
• Market Regulation: Financial services are increasingly being offered as combination of multiple financial products on tech enabled platforms. Such offerings while convenient for the customers, often are not clear on regulatory requirements. Manthan invites RegTech and SupTech ideas to help bridge the regulatory gap while using new business models and tech platforms for securities market
• Integration within the Financial ecosystem: It is important integrate to securities market integration with other financial services ecosystem to support growth. Manthan encourages ideas that supports the integration by reducing duplication of processes such as KYC and onboarding and other challenges faced by investors.