Social Stock Exchange in India – A Framework Study of Proposed Exchange

Abstract

Globally, Social Stock Exchanges (SSE) have emerged as a funding mechanism for nonprofit and for profit social enterprises. India has also announced a similar mechanism to introduce the Social Stock Exchange. The aim of the paper is to understand the concept of Social Stock Exchange and to study its framework proposed by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in consultation with a technical group. Paper evaluates the proposed structure of the SSE and compares it with the existing structure of its global peers, i.e., Brazil, South Africa, United Kingdom, and Canada. The paper also studies the benefits to stakeholders from the proposed SSE framework. The study covers the secondary research, information available in public domain, newspaper articles, press notes, academic journal and report published by SEBI. Websites of foreign social stock exchanges are also used to understand the SSE structure. The outcome of the study shows the proposed structure will overcome the shortcomings of global peers and identifies the benefits to various stakeholders. While problems and challenges are also identified for implementation of new framework.