The Securities and Exchange Board of India is set to give its nod for the launch of real estate mutual funds and a gold-indexed mutual fund.

Stating this, Sebi chairman G N Bajpai said in Mumbai that a Sebi team is working on the final modalities to permit real estate mutual funds.

He added that an application for the same is pending before the regulator.

Meantime, admitting that there has been an inordinate delay in clearing Benchmark Mutual's gold-index scheme, Bajpai said that the regulator would try to clear the scheme as early as possible.

The Sebi chairman was speaking while inaugurating Benchmark Mutual's first-of-its-kind liquid fund which is listed on the stock exchanges on the lines of an exchange traded fund, which aims to provide capital protection to short-term investors.

Bajpai said this money market fund will enable traders to settle transactions faster.

Sebi recently clarified to stock exchanges that liquid mutual fund units can be treated as cash or cash-equivalent for margins and additional capital purposes.

Liquid Benchmark Exchange Traded Scheme, the first money market ETF in the world, will stay invested in a basket of call money, short-term government securities and money market instruments of short and medium maturities, much like a money market fund.

The investment objective of the scheme is to provide money market returns and endeavor to provide capital protection.

It will be listed and traded on the National Stock Exchange capital market segment and will be settled on a T+2 basis. The face value of each unit of Liquid BeES is Rs 1,000 and the fund will endeavour to keep the daily NAV at Rs 1,000.