New Delhi: The Securities and Exchange Board of India’s (SEBI) regulatory measures helped to reduce aggregate retail investor losses in the equity derivatives segment by 18 per cent to Rs 91,685 crore in FY26, Parliament was informed on Tuesday.
In a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said SEBI observed a decline in the number of unique individual investors participating in the equity derivatives segment as well as a reduction in trading activity following regulatory interventions introduced from November 2024.
In FY25, net losses of the individuals stood at Rs 1,11,788 crore, according to him.
The number of unique retail investors in the futures and options (F&O) segment fell around 20 per cent to 78.6 lakh in FY26 from 98.1 lakh in FY25, according to the minister.
“Following the regulatory measures, SEBI has observed a year-on-year decline in the number of unique individual investors from 98.10 lakh to 78.60 lakh and net losses of the individuals from Rs 1,11,788 crore to Rs 91,685 crore in the equity derivatives segment in 2025-26, compared to the previous year,” he said.
Despite the decline in aggregate losses, the average loss per investor rose to Rs 1,16,654 from Rs 1,13,913 a year earlier.
Overall turnover in equity derivatives also moderated and decreased to Rs 202 lakh crore in FY26 from Rs 213 lakh crore in FY25, according to the minister.
The market regulator’s measures included rationalisation of weekly and monthly index derivatives products, higher contract sizes for index derivatives, increased tail-risk coverage on options expiry days, upfront collection of option premiums from buyers, removal of calendar spread treatment on expiry days and intraday monitoring of position limits.
In May 2025, the market regulator introduced additional measures to streamline expiry days across exchanges and strengthen risk monitoring and disclosure in the F&O segment.
Meanwhile, collections from the securities transaction tax (STT) on F&O trades surged to Rs 27,695 crore from Rs 7,893 crore a year earlier, Chaudhary said.
(IANS)
