IT spending in India’s capital markets is significantly lower compared to most of its global peers, according to data from the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The IT spending by the national regulator is at least half of the spending by market regulators in major economies such as Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom, said Madhabi Puri-Buch, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Board of India, while speaking at an SBI Mutual Fund Event on July 19.

Buch advocated leveraging technology to bring innovative products to the market. The market regulator advocated packaging products in the Mutual Funds space by providing SIP at a minimum price of Rs 250. The regulator is facing pushback from some quarters in the industry over the viability of such a product.

According to the latest annual data shared by SEBI today, SEBI spent Rs 93 crore in the IT sector in India in the last fiscal year, compared to Rs 205 crore by Australia’s regulator Australian Securities & Investments Commission, Rs 420 crore by Hong Kong and the highest amount of Rs 953 crore by the United Kingdom.

Not just SEBI, IT expenditure of the other National Stock Exchange is also considerably lower than that of other major exchanges globally. Total IT expenditure of NSE for the last fiscal year stood at Rs 570 crores, as against Rs 737 crores of Singapore’s SGX, Rs 1,949 crores of the US NASDAQ and a whopping Rs 6,807 crores expenditure of Hong Kong.

Further, India’s NSE Clearing’s technology expenditure was the lowest among central clearing houses of major economies globally at Rs 244 crore in FY2024, compared to Rs 970 crore by OCC, Rs 1,198 crore by UK’s LCH and Rs 1,141 crore by US’s ICE in FY2023 (all standalone).