SEBI announces Ideathon Manthan to promote innovation in securities market

SEBI in association with the other market infrastructure institutions and QRTAs, has announced the launch of ‘Manthan’, an Ideathon for supporting new ideas and innovations in the securities market. The Ideathon was formally launched by Madhabi Puri Buch, Chairperson, SEBI, at a function in Mumbai on March 30.

Launching the Ideathon, Ms. Buch highlighted that adoption of Financial Technology (FinTech) in the securities market presents significant opportunities for stakeholders.

Adoption of FinTech can go a long way in democratizing financial services, making services cheaper and more accessible to the masses, thereby laying the corner stone for financial inclusion. Similarly, Regulatory Technology (RegTech) and Supervisory Technology (SupTech) present opportunities to have effective regulation of the market while lowering the cost of compliance for the market participants.

Buch stated that the focus of Manthan is on ideation, that it is SEBI’s belief that every single idea is worth evaluating - participants are encouraged to bring out any idea, even those which may not be achievable immediately.

Who can apply?

Manthan is a 6-week long Ideathon by SEBI in association with BSE, NSE, NSDL, CDSL, KFintech, CAMS, Link Intime and MCX to promote innovation in the securities market. Manthan will facilitate the creation of a pool of ideas and innovative solutions revolving around the securities market. Going forward, workable ideas emanating from Manthan may translate into possibilities and prototypes through a Hackathon.

Anyone over 16 years of age- students, startup founders, professionals from any field -can participate by submitting their ideas at https://manthan.devfolio.co/. The event is open for registration from March 30 to May 14, 2022.

Registered participants need to submit their ideas in a video format, not more than 5 minutes in length. Each entry will be evaluated by an esteemed jury on criteria such as completeness, viability, functionality, Originality and impact.

As part of the Ideathon, interactive knowledge sharing sessions will be organized for registered participants through webinars to facilitate the submission of strong and truly innovative ideas. The top 10 winners of the Ideathon stand to win cash prizes worth a total of Rs. 5,00,000.

Key themes

Investor Education, Protection and ease of investing: The focus of this theme is on fraud prevention, investor education and inclusive growth through product innovation.

Securities Market Development: While securities market investment is one of the oldest forms of retail investment products, Manthan invites ideas that revolve around use of technology to support product innovation, increasing access to new customers and in the commodities markets

Market Regulation: Financial services are increasingly being offered as combination of multiple financial products on tech enabled platforms. Such offerings while convenient for the customers, often are not clear on regulatory requirements. Manthan invites RegTech and SupTech ideas to help bridge the regulatory gap while using new business models and tech platforms for securities market

Integration within the financial ecosystem: Manthan encourages ideas that supports the integration by reducing duplication of processes such as KYC and onboarding and other challenges faced by investors.

Published on: Thursday, March 31, 2022, 03:56 PM IST