SEBI damaging Retirement Plans of many Sr Citizens

While there is a KYC (Know Your Customer/Client) for Mutual Fund Investors, Stock Investors through Depositories, and even Bank Account Holders, there is no KYC for those, who had invested in stock markets before the electronic trading started, have now become senior citizens, and their investment is denied to them through ignorance of SEBI.

For example, if such an investor loses/misplaces the Paper share certificate, then he/she needs to make application for duplicate certificate with Affidavit, Indemnity, Surety, and all after notarization.

Simultaneously, if the company and/or it’s registrar lose their investor data due to fire, rains and tsunami, documents getting defaced, etc, THEN AGAIN it is the Investor who needs to make the Affidavit and other endless list of documents, because there is no fixed list SEBI has prescribed. According to SEBI, the required document list may change from company to company, registrar to registrar or even it’s employee to employee. Sick! How can any investor would respect SEBI after knowing this fact?

During last two decades. many companies took initiative and collected the details of PAN, Email and Bank account etc, from the investors and started the ECS transfer of dividends. But the moment the investor declares that the paper certificate is missing, the dividend transfers are stopped and the dividend due gets declared as “Unclaimed Dividend” and the shares categorized as “Unclaimed Shares” as per SEBI Instructions.

Those investors, who as a safety measure, had shares jointly held with spouse and/or son and/or daughter, now open a single Demat account in their own single name, the transfer from joint holding to single holding (with a view to dematerialize them thereafter) is not allowed easily. Even if the number of shares held is SEVEN whose market value today is around ONE THOUSAND Rupees, then also an Affidavit with Indemnity is needed to get the joint holdings changed to single holding in the name of the First Holder.

SEBI, for some unknown reason, keeps encouraging the holdings in Paper Format. While the use of Paper is discouraged everywhere in the world, which includes India, why is SEBI making the life of senior citizens difficult in getting the amount they once invested as their retirement planning.

Like for Mutual Funds, why in-person KYC cannot be done, where the responsibility should be on companies and registrars to get the paper shares converted to Demat. Investors keep trying. It is mainly he Registrars, who have no obligations towards the investors misuse their authority, and simply keep rejecting the investor’s application. Even the simple SEBI guide lines like “To ensure that the transfer should be to the right person” is not understood.

If SEBI asks for the data of such applications received and also the number of applications rejected, SEBI shall find the real truth, for which SEBI alone is responsible. more