The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed an extension to its guidelines regarding shared contact details, aiming to ease compliance requirements for non-individual clients.

Under the current framework, stock brokers must upload individual mobile numbers and email addresses for each client, with an exception allowing shared contacts only for individuals within a family.

SEBI now seeks to extend this exception to include non-individual clients, such as Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs), partnerships, trusts, and corporates, under certain circumstances.

SEBI’s consultation paper states that “Under exceptional circumstances, the stock broker may, at the specific written request of a client, upload the same mobile number/email address for more than one client provided such client belong to one family (in the case of individual clients) or is the authorised person of an HUF, Corporate, Partnership or Trust (in the case of non-individual clients).”

Currently, “family” for this exception includes self, spouse, dependent children, and parents, while non-individual categories remain excluded.

This proposal follows representations from the Brokers’ Industry Standards Forum (ISF) and aims to simplify processes for authorised representatives of non-individual clients.

SEBI has opened the proposal for public feedback, accepting comments until November 18.

(With agency inputs)