Securities and Exchange Board of India Saturday favoured a change in the role of regulators from hard and enforcement-oriented body to a "soft, preventive and problem solving" entity which will facilitate development of the markets.
"Regulators should shift focus from regulations to development of markets. This change in regulators' focus will bring in a paradigm shift in approach, facilitating transition from being an enforcement oriented, reactive, incident-driven and hard (entity) to a compliance and partnership oriented, preventive, problem-solving and soft (one)," Sebi chairman G N Bajpai said in New Delhi.
Addressing the 44th annual conference of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, he said, "Regulations should define the broad parameters for the game and within that framework, market participants should be allowed to operate without any intervention."
However, the market watchdog stressed on risk management to ensure that "people don't play foul with the game."
With convergence of financial activities and emergence of new-age one-stop financial institutions, Bajpai said this has resulted in titanic challenge to regulators worldwide.
"They (regulators) need to cooperate at a level more than ever before. They need to strike an intelligence balance between the safety of the market and creative initiatives of market participants," he said.