Sebi to improve its websites, floats EoI

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has begun a process for improving its websites and that of the Forward Market Commission (FMC) after analysing the Internet presence of its other peers in India and abroad.

Sebi currently runs two websites, including one for the investor education, while FMC is in the process of being merged with the capital markets regulator to create a unified watchdog for the financial markets.

Sebi has floated Expression of Interest (EoI) for undertaking an assessment of these websites and suggest necessary changes.

The changes to the Sebi and FMC websites would take into account an analysis of the websites of other regulators in India and other countries, as per the EoI document.

The merger FMC with Sebi is expected to be completed in 6-12 months.

The regulator has invited “EoI for undertaking assessment of existing Sebi websites, identifying areas for improvement as per best practices and action plan for implementing such suggestions including website re-designing and development.” The scope of the work includes providing solutions for the optimisation and enhancement of existing websites and web applications in terms of design, user interface and functionality and vulnerability assessment and penetration testing.

Listing out the qualification required, Sebi said that interested parties are required to have at least five years of experience in website design and development and should have developed at least three websites.

Interested parties need to have the capability of handling multi-lingual projects and should showcase at least two clients for whom such websites were designed. Besides, interested parties should not be a consortium and have an office in Mumbai.

Interested parties are required to submit all the details about their organisation, design experience and designer personnel in a prescribed format by June 8 to Sebi's head office in Mumbai.

After study of the proposals, Sebi would shortlist the party indicating the technical parameters and detailed scope of the work to be done.