SEBI has introduced changes to the securities lending and borrowing (SLB) framework which may help uplift the market for short sales. The contract tenure for SLB has now been increased to 12 months. The Economic Times notes the rationale:
SLB was introduced in April 2008, starting with a contract tenure of seven days. With hardly any interest from market participants in the product, the regulator increased the tenure to 30 days in November that year. But even that has not helped in attracting investors to the SLB window.
But, whether this set of reforms will achieve the intended results is not clear. It has been observed that other obstacles continue to exist in this market: stringent margin norms, and a restriction that confines borrowing and lending to the stock exchanges.