SEBI clears common advertising code, eases approval norms for regulated firms
SEBI has approved a common advertising code for regulated entities and revised settlement rules. The changes could streamline compliance for consumer-facing financial firms and retail-linked brands, with the new settlement regulations taking effect 30 days after notification.
What happened
SEBI revised settlement rules and approved a common advertising code for regulated entities, reducing approval requirements. The changes follow Adani Group
Key facts
- Rs 1.5 crore
- 60 days
- 30 days
- more than 3,500 comments
- October 3
Why this matters
More standardized advertising rules could make regulatory diligence and brand-integration planning clearer in deals involving regulated consumer platforms.
What to watch
- Publication of the final common advertising code and detailed applicability across SEBI-regulated entity categories.
- Notification date and the 30-day commencement of revised settlement regulations.
- SEBI guidance on influencer marketing, return claims, testimonials, comparison advertising and digital lead-generation.
- Initial enforcement actions, warnings or settlement orders under the revised framework.
- Quarterly marketing-expense and customer-acquisition-cost trends at listed brokers, asset managers and consumer fintech platforms.
- Inventory all investor-facing, credit, broking, wealth and insurance-adjacent advertisements against the forthcoming common code.
- Prepare reusable disclosure, risk-warning and claim-substantiation templates for digital, influencer, in-store and partner-led campaigns.
- Reassess campaign approval workflows and agency contracts to capture faster turnaround without weakening compliance controls.
- Monitor whether competitors increase customer-acquisition spending after the effective date, particularly in broking, mutual funds and retail investing apps.
- Review settlement-rule changes for implications on provisioning, complaint handling and disclosure of regulatory matters.