The Securities and Exchange Board of India on 31st October 2022, has decided to further cap the number of ISINs maturing in a financial year for debt securities issued on private placement basis by modifying chapter VII of Operational Circular for issue and listing of Non-Convertible Securities (NCS), Securitised Debt Instruments (SDI), Security Receipts (SR), Municipal Debt Securities and Commercial Paper.
Through this amendment under the operational circular that with respect to private placement of debt securities, the following shall be complied with regard to ISINs:
A maximum number of fourteen ISINs maturing in any financial year shall be allowed for an issuer of debt securities. In addition, a further six ISINs shall also be available for the issuance of the capital gains tax debt securities by the authorized issuers under section 54EC of the Income Tax Act, 1961 on private placement basis.
Out of the fourteen ISINs maturing in a financial year, the bifurcation of ISINs shall be as under:
- A maximum of nine ISINs maturing per financial year shall be allowed for plain vanilla debt securities. Within this limit of nine ISINs, the issuer can issue both secured and unsecured debt securities.
Provided where the total outstanding amount across the nine ISINs, maturing in a given financial year, reaches Rs. 15,000 crore, then three additional ISINs would be permitted to mature in the same financial year. The same should be intimated by the issuer to the stock exchanges and depositories.
- maximum of five ISINs maturing per financial year shall be allowed for structured debt securities and market linked debt securities.
Where an issuer issues only structured/ market linked debt securities, the maximum number of ISINs allowed to mature in a financial year shall be nine.
The provisions of this circular shall be applicable to ISINs utilised to issue debt securities from April 1, 2023. The newly capped limits shall not be applicable to ISINs utilised for issuance of debt securities upto March 31, 2023 and maturing in later years.
Further, with respect to the debt securities issued on or after April 01, 2023, all the ISINs corresponding to these issues (including ISINs issued prior to April 01, 2023), maturing in any financial year, shall adhere to the limit specified in this circular.
