The Securities and Exchange Board of India's secondary market advisory committee met briefly to discuss the situation in the stock markets.
Sources familiar with the developments said that no decision was taken and the meeting was more in the nature of stock taking.
The capital markets regulator is understood to be on a high alert mode and has asked the stock exchanges if they envisage any payments crisis arising out of the stock market plunge on Tuesday.
There were plenty of rumours in the market regarding a possible crises while the heavier margins owing to the unusual volatility also led to lots of brokers unwinding their long positions.
While the Securities and Exchange Board of India is not unduly bothered by the wild fluctuations in the market, sources said that it is worried about what impact the fall will have on the small and retail investors who are likely to be caught unawares.
'We have to safeguard the interest of the small investors," sources said. Sebi is also thinking in terms of setting up an Investor Protection Fund, formed out of the unclaimed dividends from mutual funds.
Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Board of India's newly constituted Securities Market Infrastructure Leveraging Expert Task Force also met briefly though the meeting was preliminary in nature, sources said.
The task force has been set up to suggest an entire study of the existing deficiencies in the market and to suggest measures to improve it. All the market intermediaries will be covered under this exercise, sources said.
Sources said that Sebi is in a hurry to implement all measures to make the market as secure as possible as the entry of CalPERs, the largest pension fund in the United States, has put a tremendous responsibility upon the securities watchdog to maintain the high standards based on which the pension fund has decided to invest in the country.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India also wants to tighten the market system before the introduction of Straight Through Processing and T+1, both of which are expected to put an enormous strain on the existing infrastructure.
