Finance Minister Jaswant Singh said on Monday that the government had asked the Securities and Exchange Board of India to look into the trading pattern in bank stocks and submit a report urgently.
Bank stocks have witnessed sharp volatility over the past few weeks due to the finance ministry's flip-flop over pricing of equity being returned by public sector banks.
"I am disappointed with what has happened with the banking stocks and have already asked Sebi Chairman G N Bajpai to look into it and report urgently," Singh said addressing the India's Best Managed Company Awards function organised by Business Today and A T Kearney.
According to an analyst with a leading brokerage house, the finance minister's statement will impact the volatility of bank stocks.
Singh, however, did not elaborate on the deadline given to the capital market watchdog for submitting the report.
The finance minister said the Centre had made banking operations transparent and "yet when one came across such developments, one was unhappy".
Singh said he would not like to comment on the pricing and related issues of bank stocks till the government got the report.
However, an analyst said the volatility was expected to continue till the finance ministry clarified whether banks should return capital at par or premium to the government.
Last week, Bajpai had told journalists in New Delhi that Sebi would be looking into the market movement of bank scrips.
The finance ministry was expected to make a statement on whether the Centre would insist on banks returning capital to the government at a premium to the prevailing market price. But the clarification did not materialise.
Finance Secretary S Narayan had also declined to comment on the matter when contacted by Business Standard earlier.
Bajpai had clarified that the buyback of bank capital by the government did not fall in its ambit.
Stock exchange sources said they were collating data on brokers' exposures to banking scrips. Data are being collected on the past two months' trading patterns with details of purchases and sales made, volatility, open interest in the derivatives market and so on.
Bank stock prices have risen by an average of 60 per cent in the past two months.
