India's bank, insurance regulators not inclined to allow commodity derivative investments, SEBI says (updated)

Multi Commodity Exchange Of India

04/05/2026 07:09

Adds details from paragraph 2 onwards

By Jayshree P Upadhyay

May 4 (Reuters) - The Reserve Bank of India and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India are not inclined to allow banks and insurance companies to invest in commodity derivatives, the chairman of India's markets regulator said on Monday.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India in September said it will engage with the government to enable banks and pension funds to trade commodities as part of its agenda to strengthen commodities markets.

In his statement on Monday, SEBI Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey added that India's pension fund regulator had also looked at allowing pension funds to invest in commodity derivatives, but did not disclose whether it had made a decision.

Shares of Multi Commodity Exchange of India MCEI.NS(MCX), India's first listed exchange, fell 3.4% after the chairman's comment.

Separately, SEBI will soon issue an ​advisory ​to market intermediaries ⁠on emerging ​risks from ​Anthropic's Mythos and other artificial intelligence ​tools, Pandey said, adding that the regulator wants intermediaries to be prepared for potential system vulnerabilities.

 (Reporting by Jayshree P Upadhyay and Chandini Monnappa; Editing by Janane Venkatraman)

 ((Chandini.M@thomsonreuters.com; https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandini-monnappa-8a37b013b/;))