ISLAMABAD: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has approved revisions in tariff structures of the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited (NCCPL) and the Central Depository Company of Pakistan Limited (CDC) to minimise investor related costs in equity and debt markets.

The SECP said the move is in line with its efforts to simplify and reduce cost of doing business, facilitate investors and bring confidence in capital market of country.

Following recommendation from the SECP, the board of directors of both CDC and NCCPL issued SROs, announcing significant reduction in their tariff structures to pass on maximum benefit to the shareholders and encourage investment.

Moreover, in order to encourage investors to open sub accounts with the CDC to have prudent and safe custody of their investments, the sub-account maintenance fee of account holders maintaining investor accounts with CDC has been waived-off.

In addition, tariff for annual fee of redeemable securities has also been reduced by almost 70 per cent to support corporate debt market.

The SECP approved reduction in custody fee for next two years by 14pc and 16pc for 2020 and 2021.

In addition, the SECP has advised the CDC to reduce ceiling on fresh issuance fee for issuers to Rs35 million from Rs50m.

While, the NCCPL has reduced the fee and charges for Collective Investment Schemes (CIS), which is expected to directly benefit mutual funds unit holders, as it will reduce expense ratio of a fund significantly.

The NCCPL has reduced its Unique Identification Number maintenance fee by 50pc, whereas, 20pc reduction has announced in the monthly Institutional Delivery System (IDS) fixed fee and IDS transaction fee for CISs.

The SECP also reduced annual capital gain tax fee for small local investors, with the view to improve volumes in leveraged market; the Margin Financing transaction fee applicable on Finances has been abolished.

Published in Dawn, September 24th, 2019